“Good!” ejaculated Péron, with relief; “I am tired of sitting, like a rat in a trap. How many horses were there?”
He asked this as they walked swiftly to the rear entrance.
“Only one,” replied Choin, “and there was a long pause after he stopped at the end of the wall.”
They had now reached the door, and Péron opened the grille softly and looked out. At first he could see nothing in the darkness, but after a moment he became accustomed to it and was able to discern the dark outlines of a man coming cautiously toward the door. Péron signed to Choin to be silent, and both waited in breathless suspense. After another pause, evidently spent in reconnoitering, the stranger advanced more carelessly. To the surprise of the watcher within, he made straight for the door and tapped softly twice and loudly once. It was undoubtedly a preconcerted signal, and Péron, by signs, told Choin to withdraw from sight when the door should be opened; then he answered with the password given him by the cardinal, which seemed to dispel the visitor’s doubts.
“Open,” he said in a low tone, “’tis I, Gaston; why do you keep me so long?”
Without replying, Péron flung the door open, standing well in the shadow behind it as he did so.
But his caution was unnecessary; the stranger pushed in, seemingly anxious to be within the house. In a moment the bolts slipped behind him and he was a prisoner, but he had no suspicion, as yet, of the trap into which he had fallen. He was a man of medium stature, closely muffled in a dark cloak, the collar turned up about his face and his plumed hat set low over his forehead. As he entered, Péron’s quick eye caught the gleam of golden spurs on the heels of his high leather boots. He carried his sheathed sword in his hand, as if he were prepared for any misadventure. He took no heed of the way the door was closed nor of Péron, and advanced to the middle of the hall before he observed Choin, who had posted himself with his back against the main entrance. The noise of his arrival had roused the soldiers in the room to the left, and two of them came to the door and thrust out their heads to stare at him. Something in the stillness of the house, in the strange faces of the men, made him stop short and wheel around to look at Péron; the light was too dim for him to see plainly, but he was disturbed. This was not the reception that he had looked for in this place.
“What is this?” he ejaculated in a high, peevish tone, a tone that Péron seemed to recognize. “Where is M. de Nançay?”
“He has not come,” replied Péron, promptly, “but Mademoiselle de Nançay is here.”
He spoke at random and by impulse, but he saw that his words had done much to remove the stranger’s suspicions.