“How do you know that I did?”
“No matter. I know it, and that is enough.”
“I was right, then, in thinking you would choose the night for your work. I set the watch, monsieur, because I had no mind to be a party to your murderous scheme.”
“You will repent this attitude.”
“Very likely. Most of us spend our lives in either committing one blunder or repenting others.”
“You tempt me to deem my act a blunder indeed in bringing you to Morvaix.”
“That may be part of the better understanding, the reference to which opened our conversation. Need we say any more?”
“Before the day is done you may understand better,” cried de Proballe, furiously.
“Shall we leave it, then, for the coming hours to decide?” retorted Gerard, lightly and without more he turned his back and walked away.
De Proballe returned to the house more uneasy and more wrathful than ever. He seemed to see his schemes crumbling to pieces before his eyes, and to be unable to avert the ruin. He had built so much on Gerard’s coming that he was loath now to carry his fears to the Governor, and thus stop the marriage altogether; and yet it was plain that if this was to be Gerard’s attitude when he had married Gabrielle and was master of Malincourt, the very marriage itself might but make matters worse than they were at present.