"There is yet a chance for us," he said, going back to where Clemence was, and telling her briefly what he had observed, and what he deduced from that observation. "Still a chance--that is, if the Lorrainers are content with what they have done. Will they be, or will nothing satisfy them but the total destruction of the house? If so, they will set it alight again on the other sides. Then nothing can save us."
"They may be content," the woman answered, glancing up at him, "if they suppose that he is dead. Otherwise they will not. And more than one half of the house still stands secure. Therefore, they may think he is safe somewhere. They will begin again; they will never desist until he is slain."
"Our danger is not then over," Andrew said quietly. "It seems--if you guess aright--that we are doomed. How is it now with her?" and he glanced down at Marion as she lay in the woman's arms.
"She is more peaceful. And she breathes easily. Yet, the shock has been too much for her. She will not live."
"You are sure of that?"
"I fear so."
"Therefore," said Andrew more to himself than to her, "my determination to kill him is greater than ever. Two lives now to demand expiation for, besides his other crimes." Then, turning to Clemence, and bending down to her, he asked: "What think you? Has he escaped? Oh! that I should have let him--let him go without me at his heels."
"I know not," she muttered, "yet, as I have said, there is some way out of this house. His father knew it--I have heard him speak of it--though he kept the secret well. But, even though he escapes you, he is a doomed man if he stays in this land. They have begun," and she waved her hand to the depths below, where still the Lorrainers could be heard calling to each other and--sometimes, it seemed--from the sounds which arose in the early morning air--gloating over the ruin they had wrought: "now there can be but one end. I know my own people."
"He will not escape me," Andrew replied. "As you know your own people, so I know myself. If I live through this night--this day which is now dawning--I will find him. And then his last chance is gone. I spared him once when he lay stretched at my feet--I saved his life--to-night I have let him trick me and so save himself. Well! 'tis the last. When next we stand face to face I slay him like some poisonous reptile."
While, as he spoke, he gazed down on Clemence, and saw her great starry eyes gleaming out at him through what was not, now, all the darkness of night.