When I found that the Sieur Malin was plotting to injure them, I went to warn them to return to Germany, where they will be before the telegraph can have guarded the frontier.

If I have done wrong I shall be punished for it." This answer, which Laurence had carefully considered, was so probable in all its parts that Corentin's convictions were shaken.

In that decisive moment, when every soul present hung suspended, as it were, on the faces of the two adversaries, and all eyes turned from Corentin to Laurence and from Laurence to Corentin, again the gallop of a horse, coming from the forest, resounded on the road and from there through the gates to the paved courtyard.

Frightful anxiety was stamped on every face.
Peyrade entered, his eyes gleaming with joy.

He went hastily to Corentin and said, loud enough for the countess to hear him: "We have caught Michu." Laurence, to whom the agony, fatigue, and tension of all her intellectual faculties had given an unusual color, turned white and fell back almost fainting on a chair.