it was a black gulf before Gilbert, through which he descended by the rope. He had no fear from his strength of will. So he reached the ground without a flutter. He climbed the garden wall but as he was about to descend, heard a step beneath him.
He clung fast and glanced at the intruder.
It was a man in the uniform of a corporal of the French Guards.
Almost at the same time, he saw Nicole open the house backdoor, spring across the garden, leaving it open, and light and rapid as a shepherdess, dart to the greenhouse, which was also the soldier’s destination. As neither showed any hesitation about proceeding to this point, it was likely that this was not the first appointment the pair had kept there.
“No, I can continue my road,” reasoned Gilbert; “Nicole would not be receiving her sweetheart unless she were sure of some time before her, and I may rely on finding Mdlle. Andrea alone. Andrea alone!”
No sound in the house was audible and only a faint light was to be seen.
Gilbert skirted the wall and reached the door left open by the maid. Screened by an immense creeper festooning the doorway, he could peer into an anteroom, with two doors; the open one he believed to be Nicole’s. He groped his way into it, for it had no light.
At the end of a lobby, a glazed door, with muslin curtains on the other side, showed a glimmer. On going up this passage, he heard a feeble voice.
It was Andrea’s.
All Gilbert’s blood flowed back to the heart.
Chapter V.
Suspicions.
The voice which made answer to the girl’s was her brother Philip’s. He was anxiously asking after her health.
Gilbert took a few steps guardedly and stood behind one of those half-columns carrying a bust which were the ornaments in pairs to doorways of the period. Thus in security, he looked and listened, so happy that his heart melted with delight; yet so frightened that it seemed to shrink up to a pin’s head.
He saw Andrea lounging on an invalid-chair, with her face turned towards the glazed door, a little on the jar. A small lamp with a large reflecting shade placed on a table heaped with books, showed the only recreation allowed the fair patient, and illumined only the lower part of her countenance.
Seated on the foot of the chair, Philip’s back was turned to the watcher; his arm was still in a sling.
This was the first time the lady sat up and that her brother was allowed out. They had not seen each other since the dreadful night; but both had been informed of the respective convalescence. They were chatting freely as they believed themselves alone and that Nicole would warn them if any one came.
“Then you are breathing freely,” said Philip.
“Yes, but with some pain.”
“Strength come back, my poor sister?”
“Far from it, but I have been able to get to the window two or three times. How nice the open air is—how sweet the flowers—with them it seems that one cannot die. But I am so weak from the shock having been so horrid. I can only walk by hanging on to the furniture; I should fall without support.”
“Cheer up, dear; the air and flowers will restore you. In a week you will be able to pay a visit to the Dauphiness who has kindly asked after you, I hear.”
“I hope so, for her Highness has been good to me; to you in promoting you to be captain in her guards, and to father, who was induced by her benevolence to leave our miserable country house.
“Speaking of your miraculous escape,” said Philip, “I should like to know more about the rescue.”
Andrea blushed and seemed ill at ease. Either he did not remark it or would not do so.
“I thought you knew all about it,” said she; “father was perfectly satisfied.
“Of course, dear Andrea, and it seemed to me that the gentleman behaved most delicately in the matter. But some points in the account seemed obscure—I do not mean suspicious.”
“Pray explain,” said the girl with a virgin’s candor.
“One point is very out of the way—how you were saved. Kindly relate it.”
“Oh, Philip,” she said with an effort, “I have almost forgotten—I was so frightened.”
“Never mind—tell me what you do remember.”
“You know, brother, that we were separated within twenty paces of the Royal Wardrobe Storehouse? I saw you dragged away towards the Tuileries Gardens, while I was hurled into Royale Street. Only for an instant did I see you, making desperate efforts to return to me. I held out my arms to you and was screaming, ‘Philip!’ when I was suddenly wrapped in a whirlwind, and whisked up towards the railings. I feared that the current would dash me up against the wall and shatter me. I heard the yells of those crushed against the iron palings; I foresaw my turn coming to be ground to rags. I could reckon how few instants I had to live, when—half dead, half crazed, as I lifted eyes and arms in a last prayer to heaven, I saw the eyes sparkle of a man who towered over the multitude and it seemed to obey him.”
“You mean Baron Balsamo, I suppose?”
“Yes, the same I had seen at Taverney. There he struck me with uncommon terror. The man seems supernatural. He fascinates my sight and my hearing; with but the touch of his finger he would make me quiver all over.”
“Continue, Andrea,” said the chevalier, with darkening brow and moody voice.
“This man soared over the catastrophe like one whom human ills could not attain. I read in his eyes that he wanted to save me and something extraordinary went on within me: shaken, bruised, powerless and nearly dead though I was, to that man I was attracted by an invincible, unknown and mysterious force, which bore me thither. I felt arms enclasp me and urge me out of this mass of welded flesh in which I was kneaded—where others choked and gasped I was lifted up into air. Oh, Philip,” said she with exaltation, “I am sure it was the gaze of that man. I grasped at his hand and I was saved.”
“Alas,” thought Gilbert, “I was not seen by her though dying at her feet.”
“When I felt out of danger, my whole life having been centred in this gigantic effort or else the terror surpassed my ability to contend—I fainted away.”
“When do you think this faint came on?”
“Ten minutes after we were rent asunder, brother.”
“That would be close on Midnight,” remarked the Knight of Red Castle. “How then was it you did not return home until three? You must forgive me questions which may appear to you ridiculous but they have a reason to me, dear Andrea.”
“Three days ago I could not have replied to you,” she said, pressing his hand, “but, strange as it may be, I can see more clearly now.
