She had a smile quivering on her lips, yet shook her head.
"Monsieur forgets I learned to know him under the name of Duchemin."
"Ah, madame! do not make me think too kindly of the poor fellow; for whether we like it or not, he is doomed. And if madame, in her charity, means to continue to know me, it must be Michael Lanyard whom she suffers to claim a little portion of her friendship."
Her smile grew wistful, with a tenderness he had the grace not to recognise. Abashed, incredulous, he turned aside his gaze. Then without warning he found her hand at rest in his. "More than a little, monsieur, more than a little friendship only!"
He closed the hand in both his own.
"Then be kind to me, madame, be still more kind; give me this chance to find and restore your jewels. It is the only way, this plan of mine. If we adopt it no one will suffer, only an old alias that is no longer useful. If we do not adopt it, I may not succeed, for the true authors of this crime may prove too wary for me; and the end will be that my best friends will believe the worst of me; even you, madame, even you will not be sure your faith was not misplaced."
"Enough!" the woman begged in a stifled voice. "It shall be as you wish--if you will have it so."
She sought to take away her hand; but Lanyard kissed it before he let it go. And immediately she rose with a murmured, half articulate excuse, and went from the room, leaving him to struggle with himself and that which was in him which was stronger than himself, his hunger for her love, to deny stubbornly the evidence of his senses and end by persuading himself against his will that he was nothing to her more than an object of common kindness such as she would extend to anyone in similar plight.
Because he never could be more....
Those few last hours in the château passed swiftly enough, most of them in making plans for his "escape," something which demanded a deal of puzzling over maps and railway guides in the seclusion of his room. Since the next noon must find André Duchemin a criminal published and proscribed, he had need to utilise every shred of cunning at his command if he were to reach Paris without being arrested and without undue loss of time.