Just before the Elevation a man dressed in a rough workman's blouse, his bare feet thrust into shabby shoes of soft leather, came and knelt beside her. She tried to edge away from him, but the pillar was in the way and she could not retreat any farther. Then suddenly she caught the man's glance, and he—very slowly—put his grimy hand up to the collar of his blouse and, just for an instant, turned it back: on the reverse side of the collar was sewn a piece of white ribbon with a fleur-de-lys roughly embroidered upon it—the device of the exiled Bourbon princes. A look of understanding, immediately followed by one of anxious inquiry, spread over Mariette de Romaine's face, but the man put a finger to his lips and gave her a scarcely perceptible reassuring nod.
After the conclusion of the service and during the usual noise and bustle of the departing congregation the man drew a little nearer to Mariette and whispered hurriedly:
"Do not go yet—there are police spies outside."
Mariette de Romaine was brave, at times even reckless, but at this warning her pale cheeks became almost livid. She hugged the bulky thing which she held under her cloak almost convulsively to her breast.
"What am I to do?" she whispered in response.
"Wait here quietly," rejoined the man, "till the people have left. I can take you through the belfry and out by a postern gate I know of."
"But," she gasped hoarsely, for her throat felt dry and parched, "afterwards?"
"You can come to my lodgings," he replied. "We'll let Madame know—and then we shall have to think what best to do."
"Can you find White-Beak?" she asked.
"What for?"