never hesitated. Seeing he had not a moment to spare if he wished to
catch the train which left that morning, he jumped into a cab and drove
to the station. His servant would join him the next morning.

The station at Reuilly was several miles distant from the house.
In the confusion no arrangement had been made to receive him on his
arrival, and he was obliged to content himself with making the
intermediate journey in a heavy country-wagon. The bad condition of the
roads was a new obstacle, and it was three o'clock in the morning when
the Count, impatient and travel-worn, jumped out of the little cart
before the railings of his avenue. He strode toward the house under the
dark and silent dome of the tufted elms. He was in the middle of the
avenue when a sharp cry rent the air. His heart bounded in his breast:
he suddenly stopped and listened attentively. The cry echoed through the
stillness of the night. One would have deemed it the despairing shriek
of a human being under the knife of a murderer.

These dolorous sounds gradually ceasing, he continued his walk with
greater haste, and only heard the hollow and muffled sound of his own
beating heart. At the moment he saw the lights of the chateau, another
agonized cry, more shrill and alarming than the first, arose.

This time Camors stopped. Notwithstanding that the natural explanation
of these agonized cries presented itself to his mind, he was troubled.

It is not unusual that men like him, accustomed to a purely artificial
life, feel a strange surprise when one of the simplest laws of nature
presents itself all at once before them with a violence as imperious and
irresistible as a divine law. Camors soon reached the house, and
receiving some information from the servants, notified Madame de Tecle of