"So you have accomplished nothing?"
"Nothing. After Volpetti communicated with the prefect, a guard of soldiers surrounded the hut in which he was recovering. 'Tis a wonder that I was not captured for I have been chased like a wild beast. A bullet pierced my cap and I have reached you by miracle."
Louis Pierre interrupted:
"You and I must leave for Paris at once. If one of us be killed, the other may reach the city and warn Naundorff. We shall take separate routes."
"Very well, but we need horses and money."
"Mademoiselle," said Louis Pierre, "you will be safe, here. Danger cannot reach you with Vilon as a guard. Otherwise, I should not leave you. You know the secret passages and are safe from all the spies and European cabinets in existence. As for us, we are burning our last cartridge in going to Paris. Volpetti has unlimited resources: gendarmerie, regular troops, magistrates, spies and those fellows who go by the name of 'Partisans of the Order.' What a tremendous mistake it was to let Volpetti go. If we today considered our own safety, we should immediately board the Polipheme and depart forever from the coasts of France."
Amélie rose and stretched a hand to each Carbonaro:
"Defenders of a cause you espoused through generosity, friends, brothers, you shall live always in my heart. If my father's act in freeing Volpetti bring evil to you, O forgive him! I implore you on my knees." And the beautiful girl was sinking to the floor, when the Knights interposed and raised her. They pressed their lips upon her white hands, as though she were a queen. They left without a word, for their voices were full of tears. From a window, she watched them leave and her brave spirit sank within her.
After their departure, she seemed to fall into a lethargy. She missed the long colloquies with Louis Pierre. Alone in the sumptuous apartments whose dust-covered portraits of ladies and paladins seemed to look upon her with cold disdain, she suffered the inevitable effect of isolation. No letters reached her, for René trusted nothing to the mails. She tortured herself with surmises; she seemed to see her father in the hands of the police or in a dungeon; René the victim of some political snare, and the Carbonari prisoners on an indictment of piracy. And she told herself over and over that her father's absurd magnanimity had caused all the trouble.
Her only consolation was the companionship of Baby Dick, and the little fellow was never separated from her. Hours and hours they would sit together at the window which looked over the deep entrenchments, Amélie sewing, but with frequent interruptions, for she could not refrain from stroking Baby's soft curls or taking him on her knees. He, meanwhile, asked questions incessantly and, when she failed to reply promptly, covered her face with kisses. Silvano would lay his splendid head in her lap and look into her face with his great intelligent eyes.