kangaroo resting his paws under his tail. From his large cockatoo mouth
escaped provoking hisses, which encouraged the assassins in their crime
as much as did Marillac's racket.

"Constance!" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Corandeuil a second time, frozen
with horror at the sight of her poodle lying upon its back among its
enemies.

This call produced no effect upon the animal section of the actors in
this scene, but it caused a sudden change among the servants and a few of
the hunters; the shouts of encouragement ceased at once; several of the
participants prudently tried to efface themselves; as to Rousselet, more
politic than the others, he boldly darted into the melee and picked up
the fainting puppy in his arms, carrying her as tenderly as a mother
would an infant, without troubling himself whether or not he was leaving
part of his coat-tails with the savage hounds.

When the old lady saw the object of her love placed at her feet covered
with mud, sprinkled with blood, and uttering stifled groans, which she
took for the death-rattle, she fell back in her chair speechless.

"Let us go," said Bergenheim in a low voice, taking his guest by the arm.
Gerfaut threw a glance around him and sought Clemence's eyes, but he did
not find them. Without troubling herself as to her aunt's despair,
Clemence had hurried to her room; for she felt the necessity of solitude
in order to calm her emotions, or perhaps to live them over a second
time. Octave resigned himself to following his companion. At the end of
a few moments, the barking of the dogs, the joking of the hunters, even
the wind in the trees and the rustling leaves, had bored Octave to such
an extent that, in spite of himself, his face betrayed him.