“Mademoiselle, I too, risked my life in bringing out of the Abbaye prison the woman I believed was you.”

“For that I thank you,” she said quickly.  “It is strange to me that the same man can stoop to threaten me now.”

“You will understand if you think of all I have told you,” said Latour, moving to the door.  “You are safe for a little while.  Your lover shall plead for me.  He is a man, and will know what a man’s love is.”

Jeanne turned to the window.  There was nothing more to be said.

Latour went slowly down to his room.  All his excitement had vanished.  He was calm and calculating again, a man in a dangerous mood; yet Jeanne’s words were still in his ears.  “I love Richard Barrington; his death or mine cannot alter that.”  What had he expected from this interview?  He hardly knew.  He had declared that his game was won, but it was not the game he had schemed to play.  It was to have been his love against Lucien Bruslart’s.  To plead that would have been easy, and surely the woman must have listened, yes, and recognized the true from the false.  This cursed American had altered the game; still, he was a man, a man of his word.  He had promised to plead for him.  He should do it.

Raymond Latour passed out presently into the Rue Valette and went in the direction of the Tuileries.  There was public business he must do.  Paris was clamorous and dangerous.  The mob cried out to Deputy Latour as he passed, telling him how to vote, but he took no notice, never even turning his head.  He was not thinking of a king, but of the woman he loved.

CHAPTER XXV

A DEBT IS PAID

Dr. Legrand slept late on this Saturday morning; his dreams had been pleasant, and he hastily descended to his study, his face beaming, his body tingling with excitement.  The regret which he had expressed last night, and really felt in his own limited fashion, was gone; how could he feel regret when in a short hour or two he was destined to handle so much money?

As he went to his study a servant stopped him.

“Monsieur, monsieur, we have only just discovered, but Mademoiselle St. Clair—­”

“Yes, yes; what about her?”

“Gone, monsieur.”

“Gone!”

The doctor staggered back against the wall, his face working in a sudden convulsion.  It was as though the servant had struck him a heavy blow between the eyes.

“Yes, monsieur.  Her bed has not been slept in.  The Marquis de Castellux is not to be found either.  We have inquired among the guests.  No one has seen them since they left the salon last night.”

No articulate word came from Legrand, only a growl like that of an angry animal.  He rushed to mademoiselle’s room, then to the one Monsieur de Castellux had occupied temporarily.  In a few moments the house was being searched from cellar to garret, every room was entered, whether the guests expostulated or not, but there was no sign of the fugitives, nor anything to show how they had gone.  No one noticed that the window at the end of the passage had been unfastened.