into the forest.  I had not gone more than thirty paces when I heard the report of a gun from the spot where I had left Edmee.  I stopped, petrified with horror; why, I know not; for in the middle of a battue the report of a gun was by no means extraordinary; but my soul was so sorrowful that it seemed ready to find fresh woe in everything.  I was about to retrace my steps and rejoin Edmee at the risk of offending her still more when I thought I heard the moaning of a human being in the direction of Gazeau Tower.  I rushed forward, and then fell upon my knees, as if stunned by emotion.  It took me some minutes to recover; my brain seemed full of doleful sights and sounds; I could no longer distinguish between illusion and reality; though the sun was shining brightly I began to grope my way among the trees.  All of a sudden I found myself face to face with the abbe; he was anxiously looking for Edmee.  The chevalier had driven to a certain spot to watch the field pass, and not seeing his daughter, had been filled with apprehension.  The abbe had plunged into the forest at once, and, soon finding the tracks of our horses, had come to see what had happened to us.  He had heard the gun, but had thought nothing of it.  Seeing me pale and apparently dazed, with my hair disarranged, and without either horse or gun (I had let mine fall on the spot where I had half fainted, and had not thought of picking it up), he was as terrified as myself; nor did he know any more than I for what reason.

“Edmee!” he said to me, “where is Edmee?”

I made a rambling reply.  He was so alarmed at seeing me in such a state that he felt secretly convinced I had committed some crime, as he subsequently confessed to me.

“Wretched boy!” he said, shaking me vigorously by the arm to bring me to my senses.  “Be calm; collect your thoughts, I implore you! . . .”

I did not understand a word, but I led him towards the fatal spot; and there—­a sight never to be forgotten—­Edmee was lying on the ground rigid and bathed in blood.  Her mare was quietly grazing a few yards away.  Patience was standing by her side with his arms crossed on his breast, his face livid, and his heart so full that he was unable to answer a word to the abbe’s cries and sobs.  For myself, I could not understand what was taking place.  I fancy that my brain, already bewildered by my previous emotions, must have been completely paralyzed.  I sat down on the ground by Edmee’s side.  She had been shot in the breast in two places.  I gazed on her lifeless eyes in a state of absolute stupor.

“Take away that creature,” said Patience to the abbe, casting a look of contempt on me.  “His perverse nature is what it always was.”

“Edmee, Edmee!” cried the abbe, throwing himself upon the grass and endeavouring to stanch the blood with his handkerchief.

“Dead, dead!” said Patience.  “And there is the murderer!  She said so as she gave up her pure soul to God; and Patience will avenge her!  It is very hard; but it must be so!  It is God’s will, since I alone was here to learn the truth.”