"'You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from
her. 'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me
pass, I say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the
window, cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and
was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was
conscious of a dull pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the
garden below.
"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up
and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I
understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly,
however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I
glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then,
for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the
