‘No,’ replied the archer, as he put the proffered gift on one side. ‘I do not want payment for this.’
In a minute or two Desgrais came back to know if the letter was concluded, as the carriage was ready to start. Marie shrunk from him when he entered as though he had been a serpent—her horror of the exempt was not feigned.
‘I cannot write, monsieur,’ she said. ‘I am at your service. Allons!’
She put away the arm of the officer as he held it forward for her to take, and passed into the passage, which was lined with the archers. As she passed the sentinel who had kept guard over her in the inn, she whispered to him ‘Remember,’ and then entered the carriage without another word, throwing herself into a corner and muffling her face in her cloak.
Desgrais was about to follow, when Barbier slipped the note into his hand. He read—
‘My dear Theria—I have been taken by Desgrais, and am on my road to Paris: save me at all hazards.
‘Marie.’
‘Lose not an instant,’ cried the exempt, as he entered the carriage. ‘On—on with your horses as fast as whip and spur can urge them!’
CHAPTER XXXV.
NEWS FOR LOUISE GAUTHIER AND BENOIT
The outcry raised against Louise Gauthier as she left the ghastly scene in the Carrefour du Châtelet had for the moment well-nigh deprived her of her senses. She saw the man who had accused her of being an empoisonneuse and an accomplice of Madame de Brinvilliers, thrown down by one of the crowd, and fearful that a desperate riot was about to commence, she seized the opportunity which the confusion afforded, and broke through the ring of the infuriated people who had surrounded her, whilst their attention was diverted. But the person who had come to her assistance followed her; and when a turn in the street gave them an opportunity of escaping from the resistless current of the mob, she discovered that it was a well-looking young man to whom she had been indebted for her safety.
‘Pardon me, mademoiselle,’ exclaimed the student—for such by his dress he appeared to be—raising his cap, ‘for introducing myself to you thus hurriedly. Is your name Louise Gauthier?’