But a second impulse, as rapid as the first, restrained the impetuous girl. She wanted to know the end, she wanted to see what these two plotters would do next. Under the influence of her desire to rush into the room, she had moved forward a few paces, rustling the leaves about her as she stirred. The Frenchman’s acute hearing had detected that rustling sound.
“Quick, quick,” he whispered; “take the keys back; there is some one in the garden.”
Launcelot Darrell had risen from his knees. The door between the study and the dressing-room had been left ajar; the young man pushed it open, and hurried away with the keys in his hand, Victor Bourdon closed his lantern, and came to the window. He thrust aside the Venetian shutters, and stepped out into the garden. Eleanor crouched down with her back flat against the wall, completely sheltered by the laurels. The Frenchman commenced his search amongst the bushes on the right of the window. Eleanor’s hiding-place was on the left. This gave her a moment’s breathing time.
“The will!” she thought in that one moment; “they have left the genuine will upon the chair by the cabinet. If I could get that!”
The thought had flashed like lightning through her brain. Reckless in her excitement, she rose from her crouching position, and slid rapidly and noiselessly across the threshold of the open window into the study, before Victor Bourdon had finished his examination of the shrubs on the right.
Her excitement seemed to intensify every sense. The only light in the room was a faint ray which came across the small intermediate chamber from the open door of Maurice de Crespigny’s bedroom. This light was very little, but the open door was opposite the cabinet, and what light there was fell upon the very spot towards which Eleanor’s dilated eyes looked. She could see the outline of the paper on the chair; she could see the other paper on the floor, faint and grey in the dim glimmer from the distant candles.
She snatched the will from the chair, and thrust it into the pocket of her dress; she picked up the other paper from the floor, and placed it on the chair. Then, with her face and figure obscured in the loose cloak that shrouded her, she went back into the garden.
As she drew back into the shelter of the laurels she felt a man’s garments brushing against her own, and a man’s hot breath upon her cheek. The Frenchman had passed her so closely that it was almost impossible he could have failed to perceive her presence; and yet he had seemed utterly unconscious of it.
Launcelot Darrell came back to the study almost the moment after Eleanor had left it. He was breathing quickly, and stopped to wipe his forehead once more with his handkerchief.
“Bourdon!” he exclaimed, in a loud whisper. “Bourdon, where are you?”