"I have," he answered laconically. "They'll be ready in five minutes."
Sobrenski turned to the girl, and spoke to her in an undertone. "What are you wasting time for? See to your work." Vardri raised his head from the adjustment of a girth.
"I'm doing Mademoiselle Arithelli's work. There is no need for her to trouble." His accents possessed both dignity and command. For an instant their positions were reversed. The leader smothered an oath; but said no more. He reflected that he could well afford to wait for his revenge. The game was absolutely in his own hands if only they had known it.
He could see that they were both perfectly unconscious of the fact that they had lost anything. When they discovered they would most likely conclude it had happened during the ride up.
When Arithelli had dragged herself up into her bedroom the sky was lighting with the dawn. They had mistaken the road and gone a mile or two out of the way, and one of the men had been thrown off and twisted his ankle, and made another halt and delay. She drew the curtains closely and lay down without undressing.
Before she slept she put her hand into her breast, and felt the rustle of the thin paper on which Vardri's letter had been written.
It was not until the landlady had nearly battered down her door that she stirred four hours later, and then she unfastened her blouse and drew out instead of the original two sheets, only one.
She did not feel particularly alarmed; supposing it had been put with the envelope that she had left about in the morning. Her things so often got lost, and it was Emile who generally found them.
CHAPTER XIX
"Must a man have hope to fight?
Can a man not fight in despair?"
"A Polish Insurgent," JAMES THOMPSON.