Returning to my fair friend, I found her walking backward and forward in a state of excitement wonderful to behold.  She had not waited for me to fill her glass—­she had begun the generous Moselle in my absence.  I prevailed on her with difficulty to place herself at the table.  Nothing would induce her to eat.  “My appetite is gone,” she said.  “Give me wine.”

The generous Moselle deserves its name—­delicate on the palate, with prodigious “body.”  The strength of this fine wine produced no stupefying effect on my remarkable guest.  It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate her—­nothing more.  She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to the subject of the Englishman in the next room.  In any other woman this persistency would have offended me.  My lovely guest was irresistible; I answered her questions with the docility of a child.  She possessed all the amusing eccentricity of her nation.  When I told her of the accident which confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet.  An extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance.  She said, “Show me the horse who broke the Englishman’s leg!  I must see that horse!” I took her to the stables.  She kissed the horse—­on my word of honor, she kissed the horse!  That struck me.  I said.  “You do know the man; and he has wronged you in some way.”  No! she would not admit it, even then.  “I kiss all beautiful animals,” she said.  “Haven’t I kissed you?” With that charming explanation of her conduct, she ran back up the stairs.  I only remained behind to lock the stable door again.  When I rejoined her, I made a startling discovery.  I caught her coming out of the Englishman’s room.

“I was just going downstairs again to call you,” she said.  “The man in there is getting noisy once more.”

The mad Englishman’s voice assailed our ears once again.  “Rigobert!  Rigobert!”

He was a frightful object to look at when I saw him this time.  His eyes were staring wildly; the perspiration was pouring over his face.  In a panic of terror he clasped his hands; he pointed up to heaven.  By every sign and gesture that a man can make, he entreated me not to leave him again.  I really could not help smiling.  The idea of my staying with him, and leaving my fair friend by herself in the next room!

I turned to the door.  When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out into a screech of despair—­so shrill that I feared it might awaken the sleeping servants.

My presence of mind in emergencies is proverbial among those who know me.  I tore open the cupboard in which he kept his linen—­seized a handful of his handkerchiefs—­gagged him with one of them, and secured his hands with the others.  There was now no danger of his alarming the servants.  After tying the last knot, I looked up.

The door between the Englishman’s room and mine was open.  My fair friend was standing on the threshold—­watching him as he lay helpless on the bed; watching me as I tied the last knot.