But
I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice. Imagine my
astonishment when you told me, this morning, that you could hear him
too." Raoul burst out laughing. The first rays of the moon came and shrouded
the two young people in their light. Christine turned on Raoul with a
hostile air. Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire. "What are you laughing at? YOU think you heard a man's voice, I
suppose?" "Well! ..." replied the young man, whose ideas began to grow confused
in the face of Christine's determined attitude. "It's you, Raoul, who say that? You, an old playfellow of my own! A
friend of my father's! But you have changed since those days. What are
you thinking of? I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I
don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices. If you had
opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody in the room!" "That's true! I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found no
one in the room." "So you see! ... Well?" The viscount summoned up all his courage. "Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you." She gave a cry and ran away. He ran after her, but, in a tone of
fierce anger, she called out:  "Leave me! Leave me!" And she
disappeared. Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited and
very sad. He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying
that she would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone, in a very
gloomy mood. Then he went to his room and tried to read, went to bed
and tried to sleep. There was no sound in the next room. The hours passed slowly. It was about half-past eleven when he
distinctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step, in the
room next to his. Then Christine had not gone to bed! Without
troubling for a reason, Raoul dressed, taking care not to make a sound,
and waited. Waited for what? How could he tell? But his heart
thumped in his chest when he heard Christine's door turn slowly on its
hinges. Where could she be going, at this hour, when every one was
fast asleep at Perros? Softly opening the door, he saw Christine's
white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage. She went
down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her. Suddenly he
heard two voices in rapid conversation. He caught one sentence: "Don't
lose the key." It was the landlady's voice. The door facing the sea was opened and
locked again. Then all was still. Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window. Christine's
white form stood on the deserted quay. The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree
growing against the wall held out its branches to Raoul's impatient
arms and enabled him to climb down unknown to the landlady. Her
amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the
young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead than alive,
and when she learned that he had been found stretched at full length on
the steps of the high altar of the little church. She ran at once to
tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady,
did her best to revive him. He soon opened his eyes and was not long
in recovering when he saw his friend's charming face leaning over him. A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the
intervention of the public prosecutor, M. Mifroid, the commissary of
police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touching the events of the night
at Perros. I quote the questions and answers as given in the official
report pp. 150 et seq. :

Q. "Did Mlle. Daae not see you come down from your room by the curious
road which you selected?" R. "No, monsieur, no, although, when walking behind her, I took no
pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps. In fact, I was anxious that
she should turn round and see me. I realized that I had no excuse for
following her and that this way of spying on her was unworthy of me. But she seemed not to hear me and acted exactly as though I were not
there. She quietly left the quay and then suddenly walked quickly up
the road. The church-clock had struck a quarter to twelve and I
thought that this must have made her hurry, for she began almost to run
and continued hastening until she came to the church." Q. "Was the gate open?" R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem to surprise
Mlle. Daae." Q. "Was there no one in the churchyard?" R. "I did not see any one; and, if there had been, I must have seen
him. The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light." Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones?" R. "No, monsieur. They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly
hidden under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the
ground. The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves. The
church stood out quite brightly. I never saw so clear a night. It was
very fine and very cold and one could see everything." Q. "Are you at all superstitious?" R. "No, monsieur, I am a practising Catholic,"

Q. "In what condition of mind were you?" R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you. Mlle. Daae's curious
action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon
as I saw her go to the churchyard, I thought that she meant to fulfil
some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural
that I recovered all my calmness. I was only surprised that she had
not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite audible on
the hard snow. But she must have been taken up with her intentions and
I resolved not to disturb her. She knelt down by her father's grave,
made the sign of the cross and began to pray. At that moment, it
struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw Mlle. Daae life{sic} her
eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms as though in ecstasy. I was
wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and
everything within me seemed drawn toward the invisible, WHICH WAS
PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC! Christine and I knew that music; we
had heard it as children. But it had never been executed with such
divine art, even by M. Daae. I remembered all that Christine had told
me of the Angel of Music. The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus,
which old M. Daae used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of
faith. If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played
better, that night, on the late musician's violin. When the music
stopped, I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;
it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering." Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding behind
that very heap of bones?" R. "It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so
that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked
slowly to the gate. She was so much absorbed just then that I am not
surprised that she did not see me." Q. "Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying
half-dead on the steps of the high altar?"