“Last night,” she answered, after a little hesitancy, and suddenly I remembered how late old Alex was out.
“Was Alex there?” I asked. “Is she one of you?”
Zaidee’s face was a study for a moment; then she said:
“Yes, Alex was there—that queer-looking old woman! It makes me laugh to think of her. But I have talked too much,” she continued. “Mrs. Browne would not keep Alex an hour if she knew she sometimes came to our meetings, but I can trust you; and now I must go.”
She put her hand on Chance, who had been sleeping at my feet, and went noiselessly to the door, opening it so swiftly that Chance nearly fell over good Mrs. Browne, who was in a crouching position, and had not time to straighten.
“Oh, my conscience!” she exclaimed, picking herself up. “You here yet? I was just coming to see if the ladies wanted anything before shutting up the house.”
Zaidee said nothing, except “Good-night,” as she left the house, with her hand on Chance’s collar, for he showed signs of not being very happy, and growled a little at Mrs. Browne. I knew the woman had been listening, and knew, too, that she could not have understood Zaidee’s French, which was spoken very low and sometimes in a whisper. Ivan was safe, so far as she was concerned.
“I hope that girl is not a plotter,” she said, as she brought me the fresh water I asked for.
“She is in Monsieur Seguin’s employ, and he is a gendarme. That ought to vouch for her,” I answered, feeling myself a plotter and hypocrite and everything bad as I went to bed, but not to sleep.
Ivan escaped, and in the city, and making speeches in Madame Seguin’s drawing room! It made my head whirl, and I wondered how it would end. He would be captured, of course, and sent back, or to the fortress, or the knout. I shuddered and grew sick as I thought of it. Where was he, and what was there about this girl Zaidee that she should know so much and be in the thick of everything, as she seemed to be?