He scrawled his signature on the page, and waited for Malletort to speak.
The latter glanced furtively round—Madame de Sabran was laughing, the Count listening, Madame de Parabére yawning. No one seemed to pay attention. Nevertheless he was still cautious. Mentioning no names, he looked expressively at the Musketeer’s vacant place, while he whispered—“We have done with him. He has fulfilled his task. Let him be well taken care of. He deserves it, and it is indispensable.”
“What is indispensable, must be!” answered the Duke carelessly, and filled in the name of the victim on the blank space left for it.
Then he sprinkled some blue sand from the Abbé’s portable writing-case over the characters; and because they did not dry fast enough, turned the sheet face downwards on the white table-cloth, and passed his wrist once or twice across the back.
When he lifted it, the ink had marked the damask, which was of the finest texture and rarest pattern in Europe.
Malletort never neglected a precaution. Reaching his hand to a flask of white Hermitage, and exclaiming, “We chemists are never without resource,” he was about to pour from it on the table, when a soft voice murmured languidly, “Give me a few drops, monsieur, I am thirsty,” and Madame de Parabére, half turning round, held her glass out to be helped.
He was forced to comply, but in another second had flooded the ink-marks with Hermitage, and blurred the stains on the cloth into one faded shapeless blot.
Madame de Parabére’s face remained immoveable, and her fine eyes looked sleepy as ever, yet in that second she had read a capital G, with a small r, reversed, and had drawn her own conclusions.
There is but one sentiment in a woman’s mind stronger than gratitude—its name is Love. Nevertheless, her love for the Regent was not so overpowering as to shake her determination that she would save the Captain of Musketeers at any sacrifice.
Meanwhile, the object of her solicitude returned to his quarters by way of the Hôtel Montmirail, coasting the dead wall surrounding that mansion very slowly, and absorbed in his own reflections. To reach it he diverged considerably from his direct road, although the guard posted in its vicinity consisted that night of Black Musketeers, who were not to be relieved till the next afternoon by their comrades of the Grey Company. To prove their vigilance seemed, however, the aim of Captain George’s walk, for after a brief reconnoitre, he retired quietly to rest about the time that his royal host, with the assistance of two valets, staggered from banqueting-room to bed-chamber.