"Have pity on me. I am an Emigrant; they are searching for me. I have a hundred louis on me; they are yours if you save me!"
At the same time that the words were pronounced, Victoria heard on the floor the foot-fall of the fugitive, who had introduced himself by the window.
At the sound of the first words Victoria believed she recognized the voice that came from out the shadows. The young woman was frozen with astonishment.
"O, Providence! O, Justice the Avenger," she exclaimed. "It is he!" Then, transported with fierce joy, she ran in the darkness to the door, which she double locked, put the key in her pocket, and made sure that she had by her the double-barreled pistol she always kept ready and loaded since she became aware of the intentions of the Jesuit Morlet and Lehiron. These precautions taken, Victoria groped about on the bureau for a match, and held it to the stove-grate, while the fugitive, surprised at the silence maintained by the occupant of the garret, repeated again, believing it an irresistible argument to the mistress of so poor a dwelling:
"I am an Emigrant. You have a hundred louis to win by saving me. You have no interest in turning me over to my pursuers."
Victoria replied in a low voice, as she approached the lighted match to a candle on the bureau, "Draw the curtain before the window, lest the wind blow out my light."
The Emigrant hastened to execute the order. Victoria lighted the candle. Its light flooded the garret; and when the Count of Plouernel—for it was that self-same gentleman—turned around once more, he stood petrified at the sight of the woman he beheld before him. In spite of the poverty of her costume, he recognized—Marchioness Aldini! Her black eyes flashed; hatred contributed to her face so fearsome an expression that Plouernel shuddered as he gasped to himself:
"I am lost! Abbot Morlet told me that the Lebrenns dwelt near my refuge. Let me flee!"
He dashed to the door, expecting to open it and reach the stairway, but found it locked. In vain he tried to beat it down.
"Count," coldly said Victoria, in mocking accents, "know that this house is occupied by good patriots. The noise you yourself are making will give the alarm, and you will be arrested on the instant."