"You lied to me?"
"Yes."
"Valentine!" called Alice, and promptly a girl of about sixteen, bare-headed, appeared at the end of the gallery. "Go down and ask Papa Bonneton to come here at once. Say it's important. Hurry!"
With an understanding nod Valentine disappeared inside the tower and the quick clatter of her wooden shoes echoed up from below.
"But—what will you tell him?" gasped the lady.
"I shall tell him you were concerned in that crime last night. I don't know what it was, I haven't read the papers, but he has."
"Do you want to ruin me?" cried the woman; then, with a supplicating gesture: "Spare me this shame; I will give you money, a large sum. See here!" and, opening her gold bag, she drew out some folded notes. "I'll give you a thousand francs—five thousand. Don't turn away! I'll give you more—my jewels, my pearls, my rings. Look at them." She held out her hands, flashing with precious stones.
Suddenly she felt the girl's eyes on her in utter scorn. "You are not even intelligent," Alice flung back; "you were a fool to come here; now you are stupid enough to think you can buy my silence. Mon Dieu, what a base soul!"
"Forgive me, I don't know what I am saying," begged the other. "Don't be angry. Listen; you say I was a fool to come here, but it isn't true. I realized my danger, I knew what I was risking, and yet I came, because I had to come. I felt I could trust you. I came in my desperation because there was no other person in Paris I dared go to."
"Is that true?" asked the girl, more gently.