out more about Mademoiselle Stangerson."

CHAPTER XXIV. Rouletabille Knows the Two Halves of the Murderer

Mademoiselle Stangerson had been almost murdered for the second time.
Unfortunately, she was in too weak a state to bear the severer injuries
of this second attack as well as she had those of the first. She had
received three wounds in the breast from the murderer's knife, and she
lay long between life and death. Her strong physique, however, saved
her; but though she recovered physically it was found that her mind had
been affected. The slightest allusion to the terrible incident sent her
into delirium, and the arrest of Robert Darzac which followed on the
day following the tragic death of the keeper seemed to sink her fine
intelligence into complete melancholia.

Robert Darzac arrived at the chateau towards half-past nine. I saw him
hurrying through the park, his hair and clothes in disorder and his face
a deadly white. Rouletabille and I were looking out of a window in the
gallery. He saw us, and gave a despairing cry: "I'm too late!"

Rouletabille answered: "She lives!"

A minute later Darzac had gone into Mademoiselle Stangerson's room and,
through the door, we could hear his heart-rending sobs.

"There's a fate about this place!" groaned Rouletabille. "Some infernal
gods must be watching over the misfortunes of this family!--If I had not
been drugged, I should have saved Mademoiselle Stangerson. I should have
silenced him forever. And the keeper would not have been killed!"

Monsieur Darzac came in to speak with us. His distress was terrible.
Rouletabille told him everything: his preparations for Mademoiselle
Stangerson's safety; his plans for either capturing or for disposing of
the assailant for ever; and how he would have succeeded had it not been
for the drugging.

"If only you had trusted me!" said the young man, in a low tone. "If
you had but begged Mademoiselle Stangerson to confide in me!--But, then,
everybody here distrusts everybody else, the daughter distrusts her
father, and even her lover. While you ask me to protect her she is doing
all she can to frustrate me. That was why I came on the scene too late!"

At Monsieur Robert Darzac's request Rouletabille described the whole
scene. Leaning on the wall, to prevent himself from falling, he had made
his way to Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, while we were running after
the supposed murderer. The ante-room door was open and when he ent