"Thank God you are both safe, dears!" she exclaimed with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I thought of you in the middle of it all; but I was sure that Monsieur Sandwith would see what was being done and would get you away."
"And you, Louise," said Harry, who had now come up, "how did you get away? I have been terribly anxious, thinking that they might seize you too, and that would have been dreadful."
"So they would have done," the old woman said; "but when that evil man looked away for a moment, mademoiselle whispered, 'Fly, Louise, for the children's sake!' and I slipped away into the crowd without even stopping to think, and ran into a shop; and it was well I did, for he shouted to them to seize me too, but I was gone, and as I don't think he noticed me before, they could not find me; and as soon as they had all moved away I came out. I looked for you for some time, and then made up my mind that Monsieur Sandwith had come on home with you."
"So I did, you see," Harry said; "but I did not dare to go in until we knew whether you had been taken too. If you had not come after a time we should have looked for another lodging, though I knew well enough that you would not tell them where you lived."
"No, indeed," the old woman said. "They might have cut me in pieces without getting a single word from me as to where I lived. Still they might have found out somehow, for they would have been sure to have published the fact that I had been taken, with a description of me. Then the neighbours would have said, 'This description is like Louise Moulin, and she is missing;' and then they would have talked, and the end of it would have been you would have been discovered. Will you come home with us, Monsieur Sandwith?"
"I will come after it's dark, Louise. The less my visits are noticed the better."
"This is awful!" Harry said to himself as he turned away. "The marquis and his wife massacred, Ernest and Jules murdered, Marie in prison, Victor mad with fever, Jeanne and Virginie with no one to trust to but me, my people at home in a frightful state of mind about me. It is awful to think of. It's enough to drive a fellow out of his senses. Well, I will go and see how Victor is going on. The doctor thought there was a change yesterday. Poor fellow! If he comes to his senses I shall have hard work to keep the truth about Marie from him. It would send him off again worse than ever if he had an idea of it."
"And how is your patient to-day, madame?" he asked, as Victor's nurse opened the door to him.
"He is quieter, much quieter," she replied. "I think he is too weak to rave any longer; but otherwise he's just the same. He lies with his eyes open, talking sometimes to himself, but I cannot make out any sense in what he says. The doctor has been here this morning, and he says that he thinks another two days will decide. If he does not take a turn then he will die. If he does, he may live, but even then he may not get his reason again. Poor young fellow! I feel for him almost as if he were my son, and so does Jacques."
"You are both very good, madame," Harry said, "and my friend is fortunate indeed to have fallen into such good hands. I will sit with him for three or four hours now, and you had better go and get a little fresh air."