“Have you killed him?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

“I did not so much as fire at him,” I answered.  “We were attacked by thieves.”

“By thieves?”

“The inn-keeper and another.  They thought that he carried the necklace, and tracked us here.”

“And did they take it?”

“It was not on him,” I answered, looking into her eyes.

She raised them to mine and said simply: 

“I have it not;” and with that, asking no more, she drew near to the duke, and sat down by him on the sand, and lifted his head on to her lap, and wiped his brow with her handkerchief, saying in a low voice, “Is he dead?”

Now, whether it be, as some say, that the voice a man loves will rouse him when none else will, or that the duke’s swoon had merely come to its natural end, I know not; but, as she spoke, he, who had slept through Pierre’s rough handling, opened his eyes, and, seeing where he was, tried to raise his hand, groping after hers:  and he spoke, with difficulty indeed, yet plainly enough, saying: 

“The rascals thought I had the necklace.  They did not know how kind you had been, my darling.”

I started where I stood.  Marie grew red and then white, and looked down at him no longer with pity, but with scorn and anger on her face.

“I have it not,” she said again.  “For all heaven, I would not touch it!”

And she looked up to me as she said it, praying me with her eyes to believe.

But her words roused and stung the duke to an effort and an activity that I thought impossible to him; for he rolled himself from her lap, and, raising himself on his hand, with half his body lifted from the ground, said in a loud voice: 

“You have it not?  You haven’t the necklace?  Why, your message told me that you would never part from it again?”

“I sent no message,” she answered in a hard voice, devoid of pity for him; how should she pity him?  “I sent no message, save that I would sooner die than see you again.”

Amazement spread over his face even in the hour of his agony.

“You sent,” said he, “to say that you would await me to-night, and to ask for the necklace to adorn yourself for my coming.”

Though he was dying, I could hardly control myself to hear him speak such words.  But Marie, in the same calm scornful voice asked: 

“By whom did the message come?”

“By your mother,” said he, gazing at her eagerly.  “And I sent mine—­the one I told you—­by her.  Marie, was it not true?” he cried, dragging himself nearer to her.

“True!” she echoed—­and no more.

But it was enough.  For an instant he glared at her; then he cried: 

“That old fiend has played a trick on me!  She has got the necklace!”

And I began to understand the smile that I had seen on Mme. Delhasse’s face, and her marvelous good humor; and I began to have my opinion concerning her evening stroll to Pontorson.  Bontet and Pierre had been matched against more than they thought.