Just at this instant a loud cracking sound was heard in the room.  Angelique stood still, once more struck with terror, and recollecting the cry she had heard.  Her hair, which was already loosened, escaped entirely from its bonds, and she felt it rise on her head as the figures on the tapestry moved and bent towards her.  Falling on her knees and closing her eyes, she began to invoke the aid of God and all the saints.  But she soon felt herself raised by strong arms, and looking round, she found herself in the presence of an unknown man, who seemed to have issued from the ground or the walls, and who, seizing the only light left unextinguished in the scuffle, dragged her more dead than alive into the next room.

This man was, as the reader will have already guessed, Maitre Quennebert.  As soon as the chevalier and the duke had disappeared, the notary had run towards the corner where the widow lay, and having made sure that she was really unconscious, and unable to see or hear anything, so that it would be quite safe to tell her any story he pleased next day, he returned to his former position, and applying his shoulder to the partition, easily succeeded in freeing the ends of the rotten laths from the nails which held there, and, pushing them before him, made an aperture large enough to allow of his passing through into the next apartment.  He applied himself to this task with such vigour, and became so absorbed in its accomplishment, that he entirely forgot the bag of twelve hundred livres which the widow had given him.

“Who are you?  What do you want with me?” cried Mademoiselle de Guerchi, struggling to free herself.

“Silence!” was Quennebert’s answer.

“Don’t kill me, for pity’s sake!”

“Who wants to kill you?  But be silent; I don’t want your shrieks to call people here.  I must be alone with you for a few moments.  Once more I tell you to be quiet, unless you want me to use violence.  If you do what I tell you, no harm shall happen to you.”

“But who are you, monsieur?”

“I am neither a burglar nor a murderer; that’s all you need to know; the rest is no concern of yours.  Have you writing materials at hand?”

“Yes, monsieur; there they are, on that table.”

“Very well.  Now sit down at the table.”

“Why?”

“Sit down, and answer my questions.”

“The first man who visited you this evening was M. Jeannin, was he not?”

“Yes, M. Jeannin de Castille.”

“The king’s treasurer?”

“Yes.”

“All right.  The second was Commander de Jars, and the young man he brought with him was his nephew, the Chevalier de Moranges.  The last comer was a duke; am I not right?”

“The Duc de Vitry.”

“Now write from my dictation.”

He spoke very slowly, and Mademoiselle de Guerchi, obeying his commands, took up her pen.

“‘To-day,’” dictated Quennebert,—­“’to-day, this twentieth day of the month of November, in the year of the Lord 1658, I—­