He turned and walked in a leisurely way through the passage, and disappeared, telling Gabord to join him in a moment. As he left, Gabord said to me in a low voice, "Get back to General Wolfe, or wife and life will both be lost."
I caught his hand and pressed it, and a minute afterwards I was alone before Alixe's door.
An hour later, knowing Alixe to be alone, I tapped on her door and entered. As I did so she rose from a priedieu where she had been kneeling. Two candles were burning on the mantel, but the room was much in shadow.
"What is't you wish?" she asked, approaching.
I had off my hat; I looked her direct in the eyes and put my fingers on my lips. She stared painfully for a moment.
"Alixe," said I.
She gave a gasp, and stood transfixed, as though she had seen a ghost, and then in an instant she was in my arms, sobs shaking her. "Oh, Robert! oh my dear, dear husband!" she cried again and again. I calmed her, and presently she broke into a whirl of questions. I told her of all I had seen at the cathedral and at the convent, what my plans had been, and then I waited for her answer. A new feeling took possession of her. She knew that there was one question at my lips which I dared not utter. She became very quiet, and a sweet, settled firmness came into her face.
"Robert," she said, "you must go back to your army without me. I can not leave my father now. Save yourself alone, and if—and if you take the city, and I am alive, then we shall be reunited. If you do not take the city, then, whether father lives or dies, I will come to you. Of this be sure, that I shall never live to be the wife of any other man—wife or aught else. You know me. You know all, you trust me, and, my dear husband, my own love, we must part once more. Go, go, and save yourself, keep your life safe for my sake, and may God in heaven, may God—"
Here she broke off and started back from my embrace, staring hard a moment over my shoulder; then her face became deadly pale, and she fell back unconscious. Supporting her, I turned round, and there, inside the door, with his back to it, was Doltaire. There was a devilish smile on his face, as wicked a look as I ever saw on any man. I laid Alixe down on a sofa without a word, and faced him again.
"As many coats as Joseph's coat had colours," he said. "And for once disguised as an honest man—well, well!"