She was as light as a bird in her movements. She drew the bed-gown nearer, thrust her feet into heelless slippers, placed convenient for her morning rising by her maid, opened the box of pistols, lifted one of them, examining it on the instant to see that it was ready for use, slipped on the wrapper, stepped toward the foot of the bed and waited.
The beat of the rain, the shriek of the wind, the roar of the thunder filled the room with sound, but the woman had good ears and they were well trained. She could hear someone softly moving. Sometimes, in lulls in the storm, she thought she could detect heavy breathing.
The natural impulse of the ordinary woman would have been to scream or if not that, having gained the floor, to rush to the door, or if not that to pull the bell cord and summon help. But Laure d'Aumenier was not an ordinary woman. She knew that any sound would bring aid and rescue at once. There would be plenty of time to scream, to pull the bell or to do whatever was necessary later. And something, she could not tell what, something she could not recognize, impelled her to take the course she did; to wait, armed.
But the wait began to tell on her sensibilities. The sound of somebody or something moving mysteriously to-and-fro behind the curtains over against the wall at the other end of the room began to work on her nerves. It takes an iron steadiness, a passive capacity for endurance which is quite different from woman's more or less emotional courage, to wait under circumstances like that.
Just when she had reached the limit of her endurance and was persuaded that she could stand no more, her attention was attracted by a slight click as of a lock or catch, a movement as of something heavy, as of a drawer or door, and then the footsteps turned and came toward the window. The moment of action had arrived and with it came the return of her wavering courage.
To reach the window the intruder must pass by the foot of the bed where she stood. Now the light was on the table at the head of the bed and the table was far enough from the bed to shine past her into the room. The moving figure suddenly came into view. It was a man, shrouded in a heavy cloak. He did not glance toward the bed. His eyes were fixed on the window. His astonishment, therefore, was overwhelming when he suddenly found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol and confronted by a woman.
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE COUNTESS LAURE'S BED-CHAMBER
That astonishment was so great when the man recognized the woman that he threw up his hands and stepped backward. As he did so his sodden cloak, which he had gathered closely around him, opened and fell. The next instant his hand tore his hat from his head and he stood revealed in the full light of the candle.