“A dog's country,” he muttered, as he breathed on his fingers.
At last he found the letter, and gave it to Desiree.
“You will have to make your choice,” he commented, with a grimace indicative of a serious situation, “like any other woman. No doubt you will choose wrong.”
Desiree went up two steps in order to be nearer the lamp, and they all watched her as she opened the letter.
“Is it from Charles?” asked Mathilde, speaking for the first time.
“No,” answered Desiree, rather breathlessly.
Barlasch nudged Lisa, indicated his own mouth, and pushed her towards the kitchen. He nodded cunningly to Mathilde, as if to say that they were now free to discuss family affairs; and added, with a gesture towards his inner man—
“Since last night—nothing.”
In a few minutes Desiree, having read the letter twice, handed it to her sister. It was characteristically short.
“We have found a man here,” wrote Louis d'Arragon, “who travelled as far as Vilna with Charles. There they parted. Charles, who was ordered to Warsaw on staff work, told his friend that you were in Dantzig, and that, foreseeing a siege of the city, he had written to you to join him at Warsaw. This letter has doubtless been lost. I am following Charles to Warsaw, tracing him step by step, and if he has fallen ill by the way, as so many have done, shall certainly find him. Barlasch returns to bring you to Thorn, if you elect to join Charles. I will await you at Thorn, and if Charles has proceeded, we will follow him to Warsaw.”