“There is some one moving among the oleanders down by the river,” said the count, coming quickly into the room where Lory de Vasselot was sitting, one morning some days after his unexpected arrival at the château.
The old man was cool enough, but he closed the window that led to the small terrace where he cultivated his carnations, with that haste which indicates a recognition of undeniable danger, coupled with no feeling of fear.
“I know every branch in the valley,” he said, “every twig, every leaf, every shadow. There is some one there.”
Lory rose, and laid aside the pen with which he was writing for an extended leave of absence. In four days these two had, as one of them had predicted, grown accustomed to each other. And the line between custom and necessity is a fine drawn one.
“Show me,” he said, going towards the window.
“Ah!” murmured the count, jerking his head. “You will hardly perceive it unless you are a hunter—or the hunted.”
Lory glanced at his father. Assuredly the sleeping mind was beginning to rouse itself.
“It is nothing but the stirring of a leaf here, the movement of a branch there, which are unusual and unnatural.”
As he spoke, he opened the window with that slow caution which had become habitual to his every thought and action.
“There,” he said, pointing with a steady hand; “to the left of that almond tree which is still in bloom. Watch those willows which have come there since the wall fell away, and the terrace slipped into the flooded river twenty-one years this spring. You will see the branches move. There—there! You see. It is a man, and he comes too slowly to have an honest purpose.”