CHAPTER XV
NANCY
It was after eleven before Nancy rejoined Tom in the bar. She seemed more like herself as she slipped in and took her accustomed seat beside the blazing logs.
"Oh, I am all right, thank you," she insisted, declining the glass of wine that Pembroke poured out for her. "I wonder, Tom, if you killed that poor wretch on the deck?"
"Don't know," Tom answered. "I hope so. But what the deuce, Nance, has been happening? I can wait till to-morrow to hear, if you are too tired to tell me; but I do want awfully to know."
"I am not tired," Nancy replied, "and I shan't sleep a wink anyway. If I close my eyes I'll feel that hand on my shoulder and hear the thud of that man's fall on the deck. I can't bear to think that this miserable business will bring bloodshed."
"But tell me, Nance, who is the Marquis—what happened—how did they get you away?"
"Ah! the Marquis," exclaimed Nancy with a shudder. "I am glad you have him locked up. I can't bear to think of him, but I'll tell you what I know. You remember, Tom, he tried to be friends with me from the first; and he seemed to fascinate me in some unaccountable way. Then he questioned me about my identity, and began to drop hints that he knew more than he cared to let appear to the others, and my curiosity was excited. I have always known of course that there was some mystery about my being left to Mrs. Frost's care. She has been kind, good, all that she should be; but she wasn't my mother. Well, the Marquis stirred all the old wonder that I had as a child, and before long quite won my confidence. He told me after a time that I was the daughter of his elder brother, the Marquis François de Boisdhyver, who in 1814 stayed here at the Inn at the Red Oak under the name of General Pointelle. I was not altogether surprised, for I have always believed that I was French by birth, and his assertion that I was his niece seemed to account for his interest in me. My father, if this Marquis de Boisdhyver was my father, was one of the Emperor Napoleon's marshals and was a party to the plot to rescue the Emperor from Elba. He was obliged to return to France, and since it was impossible for him to take me with him—I was a little girl of two at the time—he left me with Mrs. Frost. Thinking of my future, he hid a large treasure in some secret chamber off the Oak Parlour."
"I know," Tom interrupted.