It seemed to Latour that he looked at her for a long time without speaking, such a whirl of thoughts swept through his brain as he entered the room and saw the woman standing there. He remembered the other woman who had occupied this apartment until he had let her go two or three days since. He had hated her for being there. This room had not been fashioned with such infinite care for such a woman as Pauline Vaison, but for this very woman who now stood before him. How strangely natural it seemed that she should be there! This was the moment which had been constantly in his dreams waking and sleeping.
"I do not know you," she said. "Why am I here? Indeed, where am I?"
"Mademoiselle, I have come to explain. It is a long explanation, and you must bear with me a little."
"Tell me first, where is Monsieur Barrington?" said Jeanne.
"In safety. You have my word for it."
"Whose word?"
"You shall have the whole story, mademoiselle, and you shall presently see Monsieur Barrington."
Jeanne sat down, and Raymond Latour moved to the window and stood there.
"I must begin in the middle of my story," he said, "it is easier for me, and you will understand better. On the day of your arrival in Paris, I met Monsieur Barrington. He was watching a coach which contained a prisoner who was being escorted by a crowd of patriots to the Abbaye prison. The sight was new to him; I believe that, single-handed, he would have made an attempt at a rescue, had I not touched his arm. I knew who he was, and that he had helped you into Paris. A little later it was said that you had been arrested in the house of Lucien Bruslart, and Monsieur Barrington came to me. We both concluded that you were the prisoner in that coach. I believed Barrington to be an honest man, and I rescued the prisoner from the Abbaye, and brought her here, only to find that she was one Pauline Vaison, a woman Bruslart was to marry. Bruslart, however, had made no effort to save her. He had apparently sacrificed her to help you, and Barrington had helped him."
"It might appear so, monsieur, but such was not the case," said Jeanne.