She stammered: “What’s the matter, Ralph? Why are you tied up like that?”
She stretched out her hands towards him, as much as to ask his help as to offer him hers. But what could either of them do? He noticed her worn features and the extreme lassitude of her bearing; and he could hardly refrain from tears at the thought of the painful confession her father had torn from her.
But, in spite of everything, he said with imperturbable assurance: “I’ve nothing to be frightened of, Clarice, no more have you. Absolutely nothing. I answer for everything.”
She looked round at the others and was astonished to recognize Beaumagnan. She said timidly to Leonard: “What is it you want? This is rather terrifying. Who was it made me come here?”
“I did, Mademoiselle,” said Josephine.
Clarice had already been struck by Josephine’s beauty. A scrap of hope came to her at the thought that nothing but help and protection could come from so beautiful a creature.
“Who are you, Madam? I don’t think I know you,” she said timidly.
“I know you,” said Josephine, whom the grace and sweetness of the young girl seemed to irritate, though she kept her anger under control. “You’re the daughter of Baron d’Etigues.... I know, too, that you’re in love with Ralph d’Andresy.”
Clarice blushed but did not deny it.
Josephine said to Leonard: “Go and shut the gate. Put the chain and padlock you brought on it, and set up that old notice-board with ‘Private’ on it.”