After awhile Pepita came back.
"Well?" queried Theresia impatiently.
"Poor M. Bertrand is very ill," the old Spanish woman replied with unconcealed sympathy. "He has fever, the poor cabbage. Bed is the only place for him. . . ."
"He cannot stay here, as thou well knowest, Pepita," the imperious beauty retorted drily. "Thy head and mine are in danger every moment that he spends under this roof."
"But thou couldst not turn a sick man out into the streets in the middle of the night."
"Why not?" Theresia riposted coldly. "It is a beautiful and balmy night. Why not?" she reiterated fretfully.
"Because he would die on thy doorstep," was old Pepita's muttered reply.
Theresia shrugged her shoulders.
"He dies if he goes," she said slowly, "and we die if he stays. Tell him to go, Pepita, ere citizen Tallien comes."
A shudder went through the old woman's spare frame. "It's late," she protested. "Citizen Tallien will not come to-night."