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Rh rang out again, and, giving no more thought to him, I turned whither Marie Delhasse, come in pursuance of my directions, stood with a hand pointed in questioning at the duke, and the pistol that I had given her fallen from her fingers on the sand. And she swayed to and fro, till I set my arm round her and steadied her.

“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: