Only old Gardinois and his little, gimlet-like eyes were to be feared; but Sidonie entertained him, and even if he had discovered anything, he was not the man to interfere with her future.
Her hour of triumph was near, when a sudden, unforeseen disaster blasted her hopes.
One Sunday morning M.Fromont was brought back fatally wounded from a hunting expedition.

A bullet intended for a deer had pierced his temple.
The chateau was turned upside-down.
All the hunters, among them the unknown bungler that had fired the fatal shot, started in haste for Paris.

Claire, frantic with grief, entered the room where her father lay on his deathbed, there to remain; and Risler, being advised of the catastrophe, came to take Sidonie home.
On the night before her departure she had a final meeting with Georges at The Phantom,--a farewell meeting, painful and stealthy, and made solemn by the proximity of death.

They vowed, however, to love each other always; they agreed upon a method of writing to each other.

Then they parted.
It was a sad journey home.
Sidonie returned abruptly to her every-day life, escorted by the despairing grief of Risler, to whom his dear master's death was an irreparable loss.