‘Why will he not come here?’
‘Would it be advisable? You need fear nothing. I will escort you from the convent and return with you.’
‘It will compromise your position,’ said Marie.
‘That will be my own affair, madame,’ replied Desgrais. ‘The weather is unfavourable enough to drive the passengers from the streets, and the night is dark. No harm can arrive.’
‘What can he want with me?’ said Marie, half speaking to herself, as she appeared undecided how to act.
‘You will learn all,’ said Desgrais, not trusting himself to speak further on a subject of which he was so utterly ignorant. ‘But time presses, and the bells will soon ring out. Come, madame, come.’
Without any other covering than a cloak wrapped about her, and concealing as much as possible her head and face, Marie yielded to the persuasions of Desgrais, and, taking his arm, left the convent unobserved, in the direction of the tavern he had mentioned. The perfect quietude she had enjoyed since her arrival at the convent had led her to believe that the French police had entirely given up their intentions of arresting her. Sainte-Croix, in her fearful heartlessness, had been already forgotten, and the prospect of a new conquest—a new victim to her treacherous passions—drew her on with irresistible attraction.
They traversed the steep and uneven streets of Liége until they came to the door of the tavern, from whose windows the red firelights were streaming across the thoroughfare. Desgrais muttered a few words of excuse for the humble appearance of the place, and then conducted Marie into the public room.
‘One instant,’ he said. ‘I will ask if he is here.’
He left the room, closing the door behind him, and Marie was a few moments alone in the apartment. With some slight mistrust, she listened for his return, and imagined she heard, for a few seconds, the clank of arms. But this subsided almost immediately, and Desgrais came back again.