"No—however, if you like to be walking on the Pont de la Tournelle at the hour agreed on, you could at any rate serve as a spy for us."
"Sufficient," said Chaudoreille, pulling his hat over his eyes; "you can count on me in life and in death; I shall be at the rendezvous at the exact hour, and Rolande shall be sharp. Good-by!"
So saying the chevalier passed through the passageway into the alley and opened the door of the house. He thrust his head out into the street, and, after glancing cautiously to the right and left, went on his way like a stag who hears the sound of the chase.
CHAPTER IX
The Closet. The Abduction
AS everything coheres, everything is connected in this lower world, there is no chance; but there are many rebounds which transmit from one to another events, effects, for which we bless or curse fate,—as they are fortunate or unfortunate,—instead of tracing them to their original causes, from which, in truth, we are sometimes removed so far as to have no cognizance of them.
Thus it came to pass that our young Urbain had blessed chance on perceiving that the light was still burning in Blanche's room; but if the young girl had not gone to rest it was not by chance, but because Marguerite could not decide to go up to bed in her new room before knowing where the little door in the back of her alcove led.
Now if the garrulous old maidservant had not confessed to her master that she had witnessed his nightly vigils, the latter would not have made her change her lodging; and the fear which induced him to do so was due to other causes still more remote; thus, by a series of events, Marguerite's gossip had led to Blanche's hearing Urbain's sweet and tender voice sing the romance which had so enchanted her in the morning.
"Yes, mademoiselle," said the old woman, some moments before the young lover began to sing, "I know I should die of fright if I should have to sleep alone in that horrid room, formerly inhabited by a magician, without knowing where that little door leads to—perhaps into that Odoard's laboratory. Who knows whether he isn't still there? These sorcerers are sometimes shut up by themselves for half a century, searching for secrets which will enable them to give human kind into the hands of the devil. I am sure that M. Touquet, who is very indifferent in regard to everything pertaining to sorcerers, has not once been into that room. Let me pass the night in your room, my child; tomorrow, when it's daylight, we'll go together and open that door, since the Chevalier Chaudoreille wasn't polite enough to do so. I can pass the night in this easy chair; I shall be much better here than upstairs, and I can tell you some interesting stories before you go to sleep."
Blanche could not refuse Marguerite what she asked as a favor; the old woman was relating her third story of sorcery, and the young girl, who felt that her eyes were growing heavy, was about to go to bed, when the sounds of a guitar were heard.
Blanche listened, and made a sign to Marguerite to be silent, and soon recognized with delight the air which she was desirous of learning. There is something sweeter, more seductive, in music thus heard in the middle of the night; it finds its way more quickly to the heart. Urbain's voice was flexible and melodious. Blanche, transported, remained motionless, as though she feared by a single movement to lose a sound, while Marguerite, gaping with astonishment, looked at the engaging child without appearing greatly enchanted with the music. But Marguerite was more than sixty years old, and music had not the same effect upon her as upon Blanche; the sounds reached no farther than her ears, while they vibrated deliciously in the depths of the heart of sixteen.