Raymonde listened. The noise was repeated twice over, clearly enough
to be distinguished from the medley of vague sounds that formed the
great silence of the night and yet too faintly to enable her to tell
whether it was near or far, within the walls of the big country-
house, or outside, among the murky recesses of the park.

She rose softly. Her window was half open: she flung it back wide.
The moonlight lay over a peaceful landscape of lawns and thickets,
against which the straggling ruins of the old abbey stood out in
tragic outlines, truncated columns, mutilated arches, fragments of
porches and shreds of flying buttresses. A light breeze hovered over
the face of things, gliding noiselessly through the bare motionless
branches of the trees, but shaking the tiny budding leaves of the
shrubs.

And, suddenly, she heard the same sound again. It was on the left
and on the floor below her, in the living rooms, therefore, that
occupied the left wing of the house. Brave and plucky though she
was, the girl felt afraid. She slipped on her dressing gown and took
the matches.

"Raymonde--Raymonde!"

A voice as low as a breath was calling to her from the next room,
the door of which had not been closed. She was feeling her way
there, when Suzanne, her cousin, came out of the room and fell into
her arms: