"What? here? And Clermont----"
"He is with her."
"Thank God! Where--where are they?"
"Just above us, in the gable-room. But tell me----"
"I cannot! Do not ask me, do not follow me. Everything depends upon my finding them, and then--then I can stay with you."
He hurried from the room, past the priest, who looked after him in dismayed surprise; nor could Hertha in the least understand this scene, although she clung for comfort to Michael's last words,--'Then I can stay with you.'
The gable-room, in which a single candle was burning, was even more scantily furnished than were the other rooms in the house, but the strangers occupying it, who had arrived by the noonday train, had taken possession of it without complaint, since they needed it for only a few hours. They were each in travelling-dress, apparently waiting impatiently for the signal for departure. Henri Clermont was pacing the room restlessly, whilst Héloïse sat leaning back in an old arm-chair.
"What a delay this is!" she exclaimed, in despair. "It seems as if we never should get away from here. It will be impossible for us to cross the borders tomorrow morning as we hoped."
"And it is entirely your fault," Henri interposed, irritably. "How could you be guilty of such imprudence as to speak French just as we were about to change cars? You might have known that the excited crowd at the station would insult us."
"How could I know that the German mob was so irritable? And after all there were only two or three who were insulting; the better sort took our part. There was no need for the police to interfere as they did."