"My compatriot told you that?"
"He told me so. As well as that he himself had assisted at the wedding. Therefore, I felt no surprise at the absence of Monsieur and Madame."
"What?" asked Walter Clarges, still in the low deep voice that was owing, perhaps, to the thrust through the lungs he had received in the Rue des Saints Apostoliques three months ago, perhaps to the tidings he was now gleaning--"what happened on that night? How did she go away? Surely, surely, you must have known she did not go with me."
"Alas!" the woman answered. "I knew nothing; saw nothing. I knew not when she went, and deemed for certain that Monsieur had returned for her. That he had taken her away with him."
"You mean, then, that she went alone? Walked forth from this house alone. Leaving no word--no message. Has--never--since--sent--one. You mean that?"
"Monsieur, I know not what I mean. Oh! Monsieur, listen. That night was a night of horror. Awful things were being done outside. Monsieur knows. Hideous, heart-rending things! A neighbour of mine, Madame Prue, came in, rushed in in the evening, and said that the archers and exempts were seizing people in the streets who had committed no crimes, yet had been denounced by their neighbours as criminals. Her own son, she said, was abroad in the streets, and he was so wild, as well as hated by all in the quarter because he was a fighter and a brawler in his cups. She feared--she feared--she knew not what. That he might resist and become quarrelsome. Thereby, be lost and sent to the prisons--the galleys; even, some whispered, to foreign lands, exiled for ever. And she, Madame Prue, begged me to go with her, to assist in finding him--to--to----" and the woman paused to take breath.
"Go on," said Walter Clarges. "Go on. You went. When did you return?"
"Not for three hours. We could not find the son--he has never been found yet. God alone knows where he is. His mother is heartbroken. They say--they say there are hundreds in the prisons being transported to foreign lands--to----."
"You came not back for three hours! And the lady--my--my--wife?"
"Monsieur, she was gone. And I thought nought of it. The streets were in turbulence, shots were heard now and again; even houses, apartments entered. I deemed you had returned for her, dreading to leave her alone; that you had taken Madame away, dreading also to keep her in this quarter. That you had, perhaps, sought a better one, or the suburbs, and were enjoying--well! your honeymoon."