"Good God!" cried Léon. "It's Valerie!"
I stared with all my eyes.
"Valerie, by all that's wonderful! Then she has followed us after all, and herself has carried the news to the Emperor. Thank God for that."
He admitted the truth of it with a sigh.
"We shall look the biggest fools in Russia to-day," said he.
But that I doubted.
"She is a woman," said I, "and—well, you are the best judge of what she has done. I will wager a hundred louis that she has not said a word of our failure."
He seemed to think it possible. Valerie herself had now drawn rein before the door of a considerable house, and there she waited for us to come up.