Castle; the waiting-maid alone remained to carry out her dead mistress’s wishes.
Thibault had nothing more to do at the castle, so he left the Countess on her bed, with Lisette near her, and went downstairs. As Lisette had said, there was no fear now of meeting either master or servants; the servants had run away, the master and mistress were dead. Thibault once more made for the breach in the wall. The sky was dark, and if it had not been January, you might have imagined a thunderstorm was brewing; there was barely light enough to see the footpath, as he went along. Once or twice Thibault paused; he fancied he had detected the sound of the dry branches cracking under someone’s footsteps keeping pace with his, both to right and left.
Having come to the breach, Thibault distinctly heard a voice say: “that’s the man!” and at the same moment, two gendarmes, concealed on the farther side of the wall, seized Thibault by the collar, while two others came up behind.
It appeared that Cramoisi, jealous with regard to Lisette, had been prowling about at nights on the watch, and had, only the evening before, noticed a strange man come in and go out of the park along the more secluded paths, and he had reported the fact to the head of the police. When the recent serious events that had taken place at the Castle became generally known, orders were given to send four men and take up any suspicious looking person seen prowling about. Two of the men, with Cramoisi for guide, had ambushed on the farther side of the breach, and the two others had dogged Thibault through the park. Then as we have seen, at the signal given by Cramoisi, they had all four fallen upon him as he issued from the breach.
There was a long and obstinate struggle; Thibault was not a man that even four others could overcome without difficulty; but he had no