Valentine forced herself to remain quietly sitting there. “Well?” she said, and her voice, from sheer self-restraint, sounded quite stony.
“And the aumônier brought it in to give to M. de Kersaint, because he knew that the Marquis was a kinsman of the Duc de Trélan.”
“What name did you say?” asked Valentine, more and more amazed.
“The Marquis de Kersaint,” replied Roland. Then he stopped. “I did not mean to mention the name.”
“De Kersaint—a kinsman!” exclaimed Valentine, from whom all thoughts of encouraging prudence in the fugitive were now miles away. “I never heard the name in my life! A kinsman of——”
And now Roland was staring at her.
“Well, never mind,” said she. “We must keep to the point, which is, how to get you away, Monsieur de Céligny. You saw this . . . this extraordinary plan, then, and—since you say that you were not sent—I assume that you thought that you would like to come on your own account to hunt for the treasure. Had you any accomplices?”
“Not in Paris,” replied Roland, reddening faintly.
“And your cousins know nothing?”
“No, I merely said that I was leaving Paris for the day and might be back late. You see, Madame, I meant to have got here earlier, but it was light so long. I only had a sight of that plan for a moment,” confessed the treasure-hunter with engaging candour, “yet I remember that it looked as though there were an entrance from the garden to a passage leading under the house to the banqueting hall, I think. But I did not realise that the garden was so large.”