“Louis-Marie,” said he, “you have delayed too long. It does not do to give the devil tether while you pray. Mademoiselle de France is at this moment the Marchesa di Rocco.”
He owed the young man no mercy, he thought. His own heart, for all his cynic exterior, was burning between contempt and anger. But he was hardly prepared for the blighting effect of his own words. Louis-Marie fell at his feet as if a thunderbolt had struck him.
CHAPTER IV
Yolande de France walked straight down the hill to her doom. She had no Spanish silk umbrella, like Cartouche’s, to shield her head from the tempest, nor any strength, like his, to dare orthodoxy. She wore only a simple cloak and hood, like “Red-riding-hood the darling, the flower of fairy lore;” and that was quite insufficient to protect her from the wolf.
At the door of the “Hôtel” her father met her, distraught and nervous. He led her, his lips quivering, into the little side study which he called an ante-room. He was obviously, pitifully, agitated.
“Where have you been?” he said. “But no matter, since you are here. Yolande, the moment has come when you must decide.”
“Decide, father?” She trembled.
“Whether,” he answered, “you will bow to my earnest wishes, or commit me to dishonour and the grave.”
She felt suddenly faint, and sat down in a chair.
“Father!” she whispered; “I don’t understand you.”