"It is so, monsieur," the Comtesse said speaking in English. "I understand monsieur. It was outside St. Trond that he saw me when his late brother officer, Mr. Bracton, joined me," while as she spoke she felt Sylvia start.
"That is the case, madame. But madame still travels on, though unaccompanied by Bracton. Another companion," he said, with a faint but respectful smile, "has usurped his place. Does he still remain in Liége; has he not yet succeeded in that which he desired to do--namely, in removing the lady he went to seek from out the grasp of our good friends the French?"
It was not, however, Madame de Valorme who answered his question, but, instead, her companion.
"Sir," said Sylvia--and as the captain's glance was drawn to her as she spoke he saw that her large grey eyes were full of a sadness that, to his mind at least, by no means obscured her beauty--"I am the woman he went to seek."
"You? Yet you are here alone. Where, then, is he?"
"Alas! alas! he is a prisoner. He--oh! it is hard to tell, to utter. He did all that man might do, but he was denounced to M. de Violaine by a vile spy who recognised him, and--and--ah! God help him, he is a prisoner in the citadel; and I--I--am free--I who should be by his side in safety or in danger. I who should be as much a prisoner as he."
Bewildered, the young man looked from Sylvia to the Comtesse and then back to Sylvia, while muttering, "We heard something of that spy and what he attempted on him at Antwerp and St. Trond----"
"That is not the man. He is dead----"
"Bracton slew him at last!"
"No, no! Another--some other did so. Perhaps the man who finally betrayed him," the Comtesse de Valorme said, since Sylvia seemed now almost incapable of speaking, so agitated had she become. After which, seeing that the captain of dragoons appeared to be totally unable to gather the meaning of what had happened, though recognising the danger in which Bevill stood, the Comtesse at once proceeded to give him as brief, though clear, an account of all that had occurred in Liége as it was possible to do. And, also, she told him their fears for what might still occur ere long. But one thing she did not tell him--namely, of how her own original desire of reaching Marlborough with a view to imploring his influence that aid might be sent to the Cevennes had, for the moment, given place to a far greater desire--the desire of in some way obtaining Bevill's earthly salvation, the salvation of a man whose life, though now bound up in that of Sylvia's as Sylvia's was in his, had become very precious to her.