“Is mademoiselle ill?”
The duenna shook her head in an emphatic negative.
“The place isn’t on fire?” His tone was one of petition, as if, should he pray hard enough, she might avert the catastrophe he now dreaded; or as if, by touching her sympathies, he could release some hidden spring of intelligible speech.
The old woman, however, only shook her head again and hurried on. Cartaret was glad to find that she possessed an agility impossible for a city-bred woman of her apparent age, and he was still more relieved when they reached their lodging-house and discovered it in apparently the same condition as that in which he had left it.
Their ascent of the stairs was like a race—a race ending in a dead-heat. At the landing, Cartaret turned, of course, toward his neighbor’s door; to his amazement, the old woman pulled him to his own.
He opened it and struck a match: the room was empty. He held the match until it burnt his fingers.
The old woman pushed him toward his table, on which stood a battered lamp. She pointed to the lamp.
“But your mistress?” asked Cartaret.
The duenna pointed to the lamp.
“Shall I light it?”