"I ought to know something; I have been trained in a school that concedes no rest," was the composed reply.
The idyl ended abruptly. One sun-gilded, flower-scented noon, a messenger was ushered into the villa garden. In silence Don Feodor accepted and read the letter brought, in silence wrote and gave to the bearer his answer. And then he turned to his dismayed host.
"They have found me," he said quietly. "Of course you can not realize how I shall remember this time; you are too happy."
That was all. But Allard had remembered also; remembered the breathless, hot hush of noon, the heavy perfume of orange- and lemon-blossoms, as they shook hands in the old garden, and the sense of boyish desolation with which the farewell had left him.
"We knew each other very well, five years ago—"
The prisoner bent his head over his work, setting his white teeth in his lip until his mouth was bitter with the taste of his own blood.
The short spring day drew toward its close. The threatened storm marshaled its gray columns down the river, a sighing rain whispered around the building of sorrows. Very early, shore and water alike blended into vague, indeterminate dusk.
Rather less than the hour fixed had elapsed when the distinguished visitor, who had once worn the name of Don Feodor instead of that journalistic title, reëntered the upper end of the hall. He came accompanied only by the same stolid official as before; Dancla had disappeared.
Opposite the prisoner he paused to light a cigarette, then hesitated, looking from him to the little gold case in his own hand.
"I am going out again with this officer," he said in French, his casual tone excellently feigned. "Go to that river door, put on the coat lying upon the bench and the cap you will find in a pocket, then walk slowly to the barred gate and wait for me. When I come, salute me and follow."