The window, however, was in a recess which opened into the room through an arch, and at each side of the arch curtains were draped.

The curtains were not closed, but between them I could see nothing but a strip of the room.

I stepped carefully in, taking heed not to walk on the patch of grass before the window.

The light of my lantern showed me a chair overturned upon the floor, and to my right, below the middle one of the three windows in the right-hand side wall, a woman lying huddled upon the floor.

It was Mme.Dauvray.She was dressed.