Something snapped in P. C. Breagh's brain at that sight. His under-jaw wrenched to one side and dropped idiotically. He yelped out wildly the name of his Infanta, and went on yelping, and could not stop:
"Juliette! Juliette! Where are you? What have they done?... Oh, Juliette!..."
And then the piercing agony of his loss and the certainty of a fate of nameless horror for her, were lost in an immense relief. Underneath the bed of death something moved and rustled. The slender thread of a voice replied:
"Monsieur Breagh, I am here! Do not be so alarmed, I beg of you! Terrible things have happened, but I am not hurt at all!"
And the ensanguined pall was pushed aside and the little figure crept out from its hiding-place. Dust and cobwebs could not dim her in the eyes of her true worshiper. He choked and made a dive to help her, stumbled and fell upon his knees as she rose to hers. And then she was in his arms, not clinging to him, but leaning against his broad chest, and shivering as though she were perishing cold. And through the chattering of her teeth he heard—did he really hear her falter:
"I knew—I knew that you would come! When a priest had been found to bless the grave of my father. Not before!... You would never have returned before!"
Her faith in him filled him with a joy that was anguish. He rose up, lifting her toward the light, but not at all releasing her.
"I came as soon as I had done my best to keep that promise. Shall I ever forget what I felt when I set my foot in at the door?... Oh, Lord!... Ten million times worse than when that luckless Angéle poisoned me!... Didn't I make sure you were dead or worse than dead!"
"It is he who is dead!" She drew her small, cold hands from his that were as icy, and went to the bed and turned back the upper end of the sheet that covered the still form. "Monsieur Breagh, you look upon a noble soldier, who gave his life for me," she said proudly, and showed the snow-white face of my Cousin Boisset.
"Wouldn't I die for you? If I got the chance!... Don't you know it?... No—how can you know it?"