He opened the door and, seeing that it was a woman, stepped back. When she had entered, he closed the door while she stood watching him in the dark passage, beneath the shadow of her hood. Knowing the value of such small details, he locked the door rather ostentatiously and dropped the key into his pocket.
“And now, madame,” he said reassuringly, as he followed his visitor into the room where a shaded lamp lighted his writing-table. She threw back her hood, and it was Mathilde! The surprise on de Casimir's face was genuine enough. Romance could not have brought about this visit, nor love be its motive.
“Something has happened,” he said, looking at her doubtfully.
“Where is my father?” was the reply.
“Unless there has been some mistake,” he answered glibly, “he is at home in bed.”
She smiled contemptuously into his innocent face.
“There has been a mistake,” she said; “they came to arrest him to-night.”
De Casimir made a gesture of anger and seemed to be mentally assigning a punishment to some blunderer.
“And?” he asked, without looking at her.
“And he escaped.”