“This creature” was even then hastening up the long, ill-paved street that led to the Hotel de France.
Regardless of self, and of the curious gaze of a few passers-by, she ran on, thinking only of shortening the terrible anxiety which her friends at the hotel must be enduring.
“All is not lost!” she exclaimed, on re-entering the room.
“My God, Thou hast heard my prayers!” murmured the baroness.
Then, suddenly seized by a horrible dread, she added:
“Do not attempt to deceive me. Are you not trying to delude me with false hopes? That would be cruel!”
“I am not deceiving you, Madame, Chanlouineau has given me a weapon, which, I hope and believe, places the Duc de Sairmeuse in our power. He is omnipotent in Montaignac; the only man who could oppose him, Monsieur de Courtornieu, is his friend. I believe that Monsieur d’Escorval can be saved.”
“Speak!” cried Maurice; “what must we do?”
“Pray and wait, Maurice. I must act alone in this matter, but be assured that I—the cause of all your misfortune—will leave nothing undone which is possible for mortal to do.”
Absorbed in the task which she had imposed upon herself, Marie-Anne had failed to remark a stranger who had arrived during her absence—an old white-haired peasant.