"I told her that I had been watching for four days, feeling sure that the count was hidden in the palace; but hers was the first face that showed anxiety, and that, when I saw her buying salve at the apothecary's, I felt sure that it was she who was sheltering the count."
"And have you arranged anything, Pierre?" Philip asked anxiously.
"Only this much, sir, that tomorrow evening, as soon as it is dark, she will leave the palace with Monsieur Francois. That will give us plenty of time to make our plans, which will be easy enough. We have but to take an apartment, and bring him up into it. No one need know that there are more than ourselves there, and we can nurse him for a few days, until he is fit to ride.
"Then we have only to get him a disguise like that in which we entered. We can hide him in the wood, go on to where we hid our clothes, put them on instead of our disguises, enter Saint Cloud, go on to Versailles, fetch the three horses, and return to him--with, of course, a suit of clothes for himself."
There was no difficulty in hiring two rooms in a quiet street. Suits of clothes suitable for a court lackey were purchased, and these were given by Pierre to the girl, when she came out in the afternoon. Philip had accompanied Pierre to meet her.
"My good girl," he said, "I cannot tell you how deeply I feel the kindness that you have shown my cousin. You have risked your life to save him; and that, I am sure, without the smallest thought of reward. Still, so good an action must not pass without acknowledgment, though no money can express the amount of our gratitude to you."
"I do not want to be paid, sir," she said. "I had no thought of money."
"I know that," Philip replied; "but you must allow us to show our gratitude, in the only way we can. In the first place, what is your name?"
"Annette Riolt, sir."
"Well, Annette, here are fifty crowns in this purse. It is all that I can spare, at present; but be assured the Countess de Laville will send you, at the first opportunity, a sum that will be a good dot for you, when you find a husband. If the messenger by whom it is sent asks for you by your name, at the door of the palace by which you usually leave it, will he obtain access to you?"