“What has happened, dear lady?” he said, with affected surprise. “Where? When?”
“You are torturing me, Chauvelin. I have helped you to-night . . . surely I have the right to know. What happened in the dining-room at one o’clock just now?”
She spoke in a whisper, trusting that in the general hubbub of the crowd her words would remain unheeded by all, save the man at her side.
“Quiet and peace reigned supreme, fair lady; at that hour I was asleep in the corner of one sofa and Sir Percy Blakeney in another.”
“Nobody came into the room at all?”
“Nobody.”
“Then we have failed, you and I? . . .”
“Yes! we have failed—perhaps . . .”
“But Armand?” she pleaded.
“Ah! Armand St. Just’s chances hang on a thread . . . pray heaven, dear lady, that that thread may not snap.”