“By whose orders, Monsieur l'Abbe?” she inquired with a dangerous gentleness.
Then the priest realized that she meant fight, and all his combativeness leapt, as it were, to meet hers. His eyes flashed in the gloom of the twilit church.
“I, mademoiselle,” he said, with that humility which is nought but an aggravated form of pride. He tapped himself on the chest with such emphasis that a cloud of dust flew out of his cassock, and he blew defiance at her through it. “I—who speak, take the liberty of making this suggestion. I, the Abbé Susini—and your humble servant.”
Which was not true: for he was no man's servant, and only offered to heaven a half-defiant allegiance. Denise wanted to know the contents of the letter he held crushed within his fingers; so she restrained an impulse to answer him hastily, and merely laughed. The priest thought that he had gained his point.
“I can give you two hours,” he said, “in which to make your preparations. At seven o'clock I shall arrive at the Casa Perucca with a carriage, in which to conduct Mademoiselle Brun and yourself to St. Florent, where a yacht is awaiting you.”
Denise bit her lip impatiently, and watched the thin brown fingers that were clenched round the letter.
“Then what is your news from France?” she asked. “From whence is your letter—from the front?”
“It is from Paris,” answered the abbé, unfolding the paper carelessly; and Denise would not have been human had she resisted the temptation to try and decipher it.
“And—?”
“And,” continued the abbé, shrugging his shoulders, “I have nothing to add, mademoiselle. You must quit Perucca before the morning. The news is bad, I tell you frankly. The empire is tottering to its fall, and the news that I have in secret will be known all over Corsica to-morrow. Who knows? the island may flare up like a heap of bracken, and no one bearing a French name, or known to have French sympathies, will be safe. You know how you yourself are regarded in Olmeta. It is foolhardy to venture here this evening.”