“The very moment it is safe.”
She was going, but turned at the door, as if in an afterthought.
“She is only nineteen, Felix—a child. You will bear that in mind?”
“And I am thirty-five, Marion. I had better come down with you now, in case——”
“No. Well, perhaps, if you like——”
We descended to the Conciergerie. Madame Crussol, severe but curious, awaited us in the doorway.
“Fifine,” said my step-sister, whispering into the room, “you are to go upstairs to your cousin’s apartments. He is prepared to grant you asylum until such time as the right authorities can be found and appealed to.”
She had run away from school and the religious life: that, I perceived, was to be the fiction. My cousin! I blushed, if Marion did not. There was a little rustle in the room, as of some one rising. Marion begged the porteress to open the gate for her without more ado. I accompanied her into the street. It appeared empty, and void, of course, of any lurking shadow of suspicion. Strenuously combating my offer of escort, Marion bade me back into the glooms, and, herself turning into the Rue de Luxembourg, disappeared abruptly from sight.
At the gates Madame Crussol met me returning.
“Where is my errant young cousin gone?” I asked.