“The young gentleman will stay outside,” observed Bernard. “My orders, as you know, are only for the family. There is a bench yonder, Monsieur.”
Roland, his heart beating furiously, bent his head in acquiescence, and when the gaoler had unlocked the door and the sentries had stood aside Valentine passed in alone.
CHAPTER X
THE LAST CONFLICT
She had no time for thought of her surroundings. Gaston, warned by the opening of the door, was waiting just inside, and she was in his arms, strained to him, clinging to him, before ever it had finished closing behind her.
O, haven where she had thought these last dreadful days never to rest again! But no, how could God take it from her again so soon? He was too good! Just to be there once more, to feel Gaston’s lips on hers, to hold him—the agony of suspense drugged, if not dead—nothing else mattered, not even that he was a prisoner.
“Beloved, your cheek is cold,” he murmured. “Is it so cold in here?—and if I hold you all the time will you be warm enough?”
“I am not cold,” she answered in a whisper, “but hold me . . . hold me . . .” And consciousness of everything but that hold drifted away.
. . . Cold? Perhaps he was cold—neglected? What was this place like? To see it, in its relation to him, she lifted her head from his breast, and was conscious for the first time of the small, high room in which she stood, of the window ten feet up in the wall, so that no view was possible, and the light came down from it very cheerlessly. On the ancient walls, blackened in places by the smoke of many a bygone torch, names were scrawled. She saw a pallet, a table and chair—and a stove, which was burning.
Then she scrutinised him, with such eyes of anxiety for what she might discover in his appearance that Gaston smiled at it.