"What could he do?" repeated the Carbonaro. "He can do everything to accomplish our ruin. Do not deceive yourself, Mademoiselle. If that man lives, we are lost. He holds the strings of our enterprise, he knows the entire history of the mechanic Naundorff. 'Tis he enveloped him in that name as in a winding sheet. If Volpetti be living, woe to your father, woe to you, woe to us all and to Soliviac, who has been of so great service. 'Tis a question of life and death, and we are not sleeping upon the danger, Mademoiselle," he concluded sombrely.
"What do you mean?" she demanded almost sternly.
"I mean that Giacinto is with Soliviac, and that they are exploring every shoal, creek and cape, interviewing every fisherman. Their destination is Pleneuf. Their project may have a startling effect," and Louis Pierre's voice rang out almost stridently.
[Chapter III]
GIACINTO'S RETURN
Amélie was forced to resign herself patiently to await the news. Life tends to normalize itself, whatever the given conditions, and she wisely accommodated herself to the inevitable. During the mornings she roamed over the great castle, in company with Vilon and Baby Dick. They would ascend towers and descend into subterranean passages, rearranging the salons and adorning the altars. The only inmates of the lofty feudal edifice, besides Vilon, Amélie, Louis Pierre and the child were two maid-servants, one of whom was in charge of the kitchen. At dawn both maids went into the fields for fruit and vegetables or to take the cows to pasture, so that Amélie, free from importunate eyes, walked about freely. They were curious to see the Marquis's relative, she who slept in the Marquise's boudoir, but they made no impertinent inquiries through fear of Jean Vilon, who alone waited upon the guest. During the afternoon, Louis Pierre would come up from his room and play dominoes or discuss the future with her. The Carbonaro had read many books. His brain had received certain ideas as though they had been graven thereon with a corrosive. He was visionary, mystical and a dreamer, and pertained to the sect known as Theophilanthropists; he believed himself destined by Providence to accomplish some high mission requiring great valor and abnegation. His chief characteristic was a contempt for life, and this secured him Amélie's esteem.
With Jean Vilon, Amélie conversed less than with Louis Pierre and her treatment always displayed an air of affectionate patronage. She was a woman, very much of a woman, and fully conscious of her effect upon men. She used no coquetry toward the fine peasant for in no particular did her feminine artifices approach familiarity. The homage she loved to receive was that of the soul, the adoration of chivalry; she longed for the devotion which illustrious unhappy queens had inspired, such as Mary Stuart, or Marie Antoinette. The attachment of Jean Vilon, each day more apparent, was such as a youth of medieval ages paid the holy relics. He divined and filled her every wish. On warm nights he escorted her through the woods that she might breathe the fresh, pure air. They took long walks which brought the roses back to her cheeks and the litheness to her limbs. These clandestine rambles, which seemed at first so risky, soon became a custom.
But her chief delight was the child, the unfortunate waif, torn from the arms of his drowning mother and cast into hers. When asked his name, he would answer "Baby, baby!"
"Only Baby?" Amélie would ask.