‘Ha!’ exclaimed François, with a savage ferocity, that made him fearful to look upon, ‘she is playing fast and loose with us. On your life, girl, is this the truth?’
‘It is the truth,’ replied Louise.
‘And where is the Marchioness?’ he asked thickly, and in a voice almost inarticulate from passion.
‘In her apartment, when I left her,’ said the Languedocian.
‘Alone?’ asked François.
‘Some one entered the room as I quitted it,’ was the answer.
Francois d’Aubray hardly awaited her reply. Springing like a tiger across the landing-place to the door of Marie’s boudoir he cried—
‘Stand by me, gentlemen, for the honour of Compiègne! De Villeaume! down into the court-yard, and see that no one leaves the hôtel by that way. You, messieurs, guard the issues here. Henri! come you with me.’
And he attempted to pass into his sister’s apartment.
‘Open!’ he roared, rather than shouted,—‘open! harlot! adultress!—open!’