But heedless he advanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriage door he leaned forward, to seize her.

Then, before he could so much as conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavy horse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the butt of it down with a deadly precision between his brows.
He reeled backwards, threw up his arms, and measured his length in the thick grey mud of the road.
Her eyes had followed him with a look of horror, and until she saw him lying still on his back did she seem to realise what she had done.
"My dear, brave girl," murmured her mother's voice but she never heard it.

With a sob she relaxed her grasp of the pistol and let it fall from the carriage.
"Shall I drive on, Mademoiselle ?" inquired Blaise from the box.
But without answering him she had stepped down into the mud, and was standing bare-headed in the rain beside the body of Caron.
Silently, she stooped and groped for his heart.

It was beating vigorously enough, she thought.

She stooped lower and taking him under the arms, she half bore, half dragged him to the side of the road, as if the thin, bare hedge were capable of affording him shelter.