For, in the moment when he tugged at the rope, he felt that the other end was loose--was no longer attached to the tree across the brink. Loose and hanging down over the side of the house on the roof of which he stood.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
L'ESPÉE CARNACIERE
"God knows what has happened," he said to Marion Wyatt when he had returned to her. "Yet one thing is sure. There is no escape now. We are snared."
"Is it treachery?" she whispered, shaking and white to the lips with terror, so that she looked more like a spectre than before. "Treachery on the part of the man in whom you confided?"
It was not strange the girl should be so startled, so overcome. For more than a year she had been incarcerated in this house (as yet Andrew knew not how she had been brought here, scarce knew, indeed, whether, after all, Debrasques had not been mistaken, and that, originally, at least, she might have come here of her own free will, even though made a prisoner of afterwards), had been incarcerated here with no hope of escape. Then, as she reflected hurriedly, the chance had come, unlooked for--as chances come always to us in this life--and, as unexpectedly, had been snatched away a moment afterwards. Snatched away, while leaving behind it a horror greater than before! For now, this man, the brother of that other who was her affianced husband, had placed himself also in deadly, hideous peril. A peril that must surely engulf him, since there was no loophole left for escape. He would be found here, must be found ere many hours had passed--and then! What would happen then? She dared not even think, could not think; could do nothing but stand trembling before him, white to the lips.
"Scarcely treachery on Laurent's part, madame," Andrew replied, and, as he spoke, Marion still gazing at him as she had done since his return from the garret, wondered if this cool, determined man could, indeed, be gentle Philip's brother! This man who, here, shut up in a hostile house, with death threatening him as the reward for his intrusion when once he should be discovered, spoke as calmly as though he stood on his own brother's hearth.
"Scarcely treachery, I think. The rope was not-unwound from the tree as, doubtless, it would have been by him, had he resolved to play me false. Instead, when I drew it up to make examination, it was cut cleanly through. Also, somewhat shorter than before. Whereby I found it had been severed hastily."
"By whom, think you?"
"How can I say? How tell? The following of the man, in whose house we are, are all asleep. Not by them, therefore. As for him, De Bois-Vallée. Where Is he?"