By your
leave I return in an hour, and I bring with me--shall it be my priest, or
your minister?"
She looked at him with the face of one who awakes slowly to the full
horror, the full dread, of her position. For a moment she did not
answer. Then--
"A minister," she muttered, her voice scarcely audible.
He nodded. "A minister," he said lightly. "Very well, if I can find
one." And walking to the shattered, gaping casement--through which the
cool morning air blew into the room and gently stirred the hair of the
unhappy girl--he said some words to the man on guard outside. Then he
turned to the door, but on the threshold he paused, looked with a strange
expression at the pair, and signed to Carlat and the servants to go out
before him.
"Up, and lie close above!" he growled. "Open a window or look out, and
you will pay dearly for it! Do you hear? Up! Up! You, too, old crop-
ears. What! would you?"--with a sudden glare as Carlat hesitated--"that
is better! Mademoiselle, until my return."
He saw them all out, followed them, and closed the door on the two; who,
left together, alone with the gaping window and the disordered feast,
maintained a strange silence. The girl, gripping one hand in the other
as if to quell her rising horror, sat looking before her, and seemed
barely to breathe.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95