“Royale Place—it is the right road. Read her intention.”
“Run, run quick! she is going to denounce you—if she arrives at Criminal Lieutenant Sartine’ before you, you are lost!”
Balsamo uttered a terrible yell, sprang into the hedges, burst a small door, and got upon the open ground. There an Arab horse was waiting, on which he leaped at a bound. It started off like an arrow towards Paris.
Andrea stood mute, pale, and cold. But as though the magnetiser carried life away with him, she collapsed and fell. In his eagerness to overtake Lorenza, Balsamo had forgotten to arouse Andrea from the mesmeric sleep.
She had barely touched the ground before Gilbert leaped out with the vigor and agility of the tiger. He seized her in his arms and without feeling what a burden he had undertaken, he carried her back to the room which she had left on the call of Balsamo.
All the doors had been left open by the girl, and the candle was still burning.
As he stumbled against the sofa when he blundered in, he naturally placed her upon it. All became enfevered in him, though the lifeless body was cold. His nerves shivered and his blood burned.
Yet his first idea was pure and chaste: it was to restore consciousness to this beautiful statue. He sprinkled her face with water from the decanter.
But at this period, as his trembling hand was encircling the narrow neck of the crystal bottle, he heard a firm but light step make the stairs of wood and brick squeak on the way to the chamber.
It could not be Nicole who was on the way with Beausire or Balsamo who was galloping to Paris.