“Monsieur, do not be angry. Oh, I will tell you whatever you will. This club then, it is a pretext, one cannot but assume—a veil to hide perilous sentiments, not of politics, but of——”
“But of what?”
The girl hung her head. The increasing gloom without lent its shadow to her face.
“Monsieur has no mercy,” she whispered.
“But of what, Nicette? Tell me.”
“Monsieur—of intrigue.”
As if the very word completed an electric circuit and discharged the battery, a flash answered it, followed almost immediately by a splintering shock of thunder. The girl uttered a shriek, started to her feet, and ran to the middle of the room, holding her hands to her eyes.
“I am blind!” she wailed—“oh, I am blind!”
Ned hurried to her—gripped her shoulder.
“Nonsense!” he cried; “it will pass in a moment. Let me look.”