"Yes," he said. "She will be saved perhaps. She must be saved!"

He did not add "or it will be my death"; but I felt that the phrase
trembled on his pale lips.

Rouletabille intervened:

"You are in a hurry, Monsieur; but I must speak with you. I have
something of the greatest importance to tell you."

Frederic Larsan interrupted:

"May I leave you?" he asked of Robert Darzac. "Have you a key, or
do you wish me to give you this one."

"Thank you. I have a key and will lock the gate."

Larsan hurried off in the direction of the chateau, the imposing
pile of which could be perceived a few hundred yards away.

Robert Darzac, with knit brow, was beginning to show impatience. I
presented Rouletabille as a good friend of mine, but, as soon as he
learnt that the young man was a journalist, he looked at me very
reproachfully, excused himself, under the necessity of having to
reach Epinay in twenty minutes, bowed, and whipped up his horse.
But Rouletabille had seized the bridle and, to my utter astonishment,
stopped the carriage with a vigorous hand. Then he gave utterance
to a sentence which was utterly meaningless to me.

"The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its