The moment he turned round to get me a chair, I seized my opportunity -- thanked him -- made my excuses -- and slipped out.

An hour later, when Laura's maid happened to be in her mistress's room, I took occasion to refer to the closeness of the night, with a view to ascertaining next how the servants had been passing their time.

`Have you been suffering much from the heat downstairs?' I asked.

`No, miss,' said the girl, `we have not felt it to speak of.'

`You have been out in the woods then, I suppose?'

`Some of us thought of going, miss. But cook said she should take her chair into the cool court-yard, outside the kitchen door, and on second thoughts, all the rest of us took our chairs out there too.'

The housekeeper was now the only person who remained to be accounted for.

`Is Mrs Michelson gone to bed yet?' I inquired.

`I should this not, miss,' said the girl, smiling. `Mrs Michelson is more likely to be getting up just now than going to bed.'

`Why? What do you mean? Has Mrs Michelson been taking to her bed in the daytime?'

`No, miss, not exactly, but the next thing to it. She's been asleep all the evening on the sofa in her own room.'

Putting together what I observed for myself in the library, and what I have just heard from Laura's maid, one conclusion seems inevitable. The figure we saw at the lake was not the figure of Madame Fosco, of her husband, or of any of the servants. The footsteps we heard behind us were not the footsteps of any one belonging to the house.

Who could it have been?

It seems useless to inquire. I cannot even decide whether the figure was a man's or a woman's. I can only say that I think it was a woman's.