"Who can tell where no danger is or is not in these times?" evasively responded young Charny. "On the morning of the day when my brother Valence was struck down, he would have surely answered No, if he had been asked if he stood in peril. Yet he was laid low in death by the morrow. At present, danger leaps up from the ground, and we face death without knowing whence it came and without calling it."
Andrea turned pale and said,
"There is danger of death, then? You think so if you do not say it."
"I think, lady, that if you have something important to tell my brother, the enterprise we are committed to is serious enough to make you charge me by word of mouth or writing with your wish or thought to be transmitted to him."
"It is well: viscount, I ask five minutes," said the countess, rising.
With the mechanical, slow step habitual to her, she went into her room, of which she shut the door.
The young gentleman looked at his watch with uneasiness.
"A quarter past nine, and the King expects me at half after," he muttered: "luckily it is but a step to the palace."
But the countess did not take the time she had stated; in a few seconds she returned with a sealed letter, and said with solemnity,
"Viscount, I entrust this to your honor."