‘Yet you should hope that the consciousness of your own innocence will one day prevail,’ returned the exempt.
‘I have no hope, monsieur. I am alone in this dreary place—alone, even in the midst of its inmates, as though I were shut out entirely from the world.’
Desgrais paused for an instant. ‘She has not mentioned her comrades,’ he said to himself, ‘and she was certainly accompanied on the road. All accounts agree in this.’
‘You are mistaken, madame,’ he continued aloud. ‘Think. Is there no one on whom you think you might rely?’
‘What mean you?’ inquired Marie eagerly.
For a few seconds they continued gazing at one another, each waiting for the other to speak. Desgrais was waiting for some cue, from which his tact might enable him to proceed, and the Marchioness was fearful of committing herself by revealing more than the other knew. Two deep and artful natures were pitted against each other.
Desgrais was the first to speak. With an assumed expression of countenance, calculated to impress his companion with the idea that he understood everything then passing in her mind, and in a voice of deep meaning, he said—
‘Is there no one, think you, who feels an interest in you? You can trust me. What communication have you held with the world since you have been in this retreat?’
‘None, father—on my soul, none.’
‘And have you expected to hear from no one?’ continued Desgrais in the same tone.