"The horror is ended for you now, poor woman," the priest said. "Never more will he affright your sight when you rise from your bed. Yet do me one service, I beg you. Put on some clothes, for the night air gets cold"--she had, indeed, come forth from her room--where she had again been watching in terror, fearing to see another murder--in little else than her night raiment--"and go fetch the watch. I will see that he escapes not."
The woman went away at his request, and coming out from the house, at which she was the concierge, with a cloak thrown over her shoulders, sped down the darkened streets, while once more the avenger and his prey were left alone. But they spoke no more to one another now; only stood there silent, facing each other. Yet once, after a few moments' pause, Fordingbridge chuckled audibly and whispered to himself. God only knows what was in the wretched man's mind as he did so; Archibald, at least, made no attempt to discover.
For himself he was contented. Fate had thrown into his hands the assassin of his beloved brother--that was enough.
Presently the woman came back, and with her three of the watch, armed and with a lantern borne in the hands of one, and into their custody the Jesuit gave Fordingbridge. Yet, since he could not feel at ease until he had seen the other safe under lock and key, he accompanied them to the prison--to which the guardhouse was attached--and handed him over to the officials there.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will formally lay my charge against him before the Procureur du Roi; till then, I pray you, keep him safe. He is the murderer of the young Scotch officer who was slain outside the cathedral, and was my brother, as all Amiens knows."
"Never fear, monsieur," said the chief of the watch; "we will keep him safe enough. Our cage is strong."
* * * * * * *
A few nights later than the one on which the murderer, Fordingbridge, had been taken to the prison, Bertie Elphinston, riding up to the northern gate of Paris, demanded admission. It was a cold, raw night this--one of those October evenings common enough to the north of France, when the moisture hangs like rain-drops on every bush and bramble, and when the rawness penetrates to the inside of man, making him think of drams of brandy and Nantz as the best preventive of chill and cold.
He would not have ridden in to-night, would not have left the comfortable fire in the officers' quarters of the St. Denis Caserne to splash through six miles of wet roads, only it was Thursday, the day on which he invariably went to Paris, partly to pay his respects to Charles Edward, partly to see his mother and Kate. Also, if he did not come on Thursday there was no other opportunity for him to do so for a week; there were only the officers of two troops quartered in the old town, and but one night a week granted to each for leave. Therefore he was loath to lose his turn, and to go a whole fortnight without seeing the two creatures dearest to him in the world.
"A rough, raw night," he said to the man at the gate as he passed in, "a night better for indoor pleasures than the streets. You have the best of it," glancing in at the bright fire in the man's room, "much the best of it."