At this moment, however, the landlord himself appeared at the door, and, with many bows and genuflexions, announced that he had opened the doors of the rooms of all the missing men with his pass-keys--and--and--it was very strange, but all their effects were there untouched.
Then, ere the Duchess could reply to this ominous statement a cry from Jacquette startled her, and, a moment later, she had rushed toward the girl and caught her in her arms ere she swooned.
"Can I lend assistance?" a soft voice asked as this occurred, and Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville appeared at the open door of the room, clad, like the Duchess, in a long robe de chamber.
"No," the latter said, looking at her with a glance that would have withered many another woman, a look full of disdain. "No. And, madame, this is my private room, therefore I desire to possess it in privacy."
[CHAPTER XIII]
"She knows," Emérance muttered to herself as she sought her own rooms from which, in fact, she had only been brought forth by the noise and chattering in the passages and the sounds that issued from the Duchess's salon, owing to the door being open. "She knows--in part--what I am. That look from those dark, haughty eyes told all. Yes, she knows something--but only something; not all. She cannot know of the Great Attempt."
She took up now a little hand-bell from the table and, ringing it, brought forth her maid from the bedroom where she was engaged in arranging that apartment; after which Emérance said:--
"What means this turmoil in the inn, this hurly-burly on the stairs and in the passages? Know you aught?"
"Madame," the woman replied, only too willing to talk, "there are strange happenings in this house. The retinue of the Duchesse de Castellucchio have mostly deserted her. They are missing."
"Missing!" Emérance exclaimed, while her face blanched. "Missing! Her retinue missing. Explain to me."