He rose at once, and in some surprise. She held a knife in her hand, and her face carried something about it of wild and dangerous, a kind of storm-sunshine, as it seemed.
"Hum," thought the Abbé John, as he looked at her, "I had better have stayed in the Place of Eyes! I see not why all this should happen to me. I am an easy man, and have always done what I could to content a lady. But this one asks too much. And then, after all, now there is Claire! I told her so. It is very tiresome!"
Nevertheless he smiled his sweet, careless smile, and swept back his curls with his hand.
"If I am to die, a fellow may as well do it with some grace," he murmured; "I wish I had been more fit—if only Claire had had the time to make me a better man!"
Yet it is to be feared that even in that moment the Abbé John thought more of the process (as outlined in his mind with Claire as instructress) than of the very desirable result.
What the thoughts of Valentine la Niña were when she left the presence of her uncle could hardly be defined even to her own mind. But seeing this young man so easy, so debonair in spite of his dishevelled appearance, the girl only held out her left hand. A faint smile, like the sun breaking momentarily through the thunder-clouds, appeared on her lips.
"I was wrong," she said; "let me help you only—I ask no more. Come!"
And without another word she led him into a narrow passage, between two high walls. They passed door after door, all closed, one of them being the chamber of Mariana, in which he sat like a spider spinning webs for the Society of the Gesù. What might have happened if that door had been suddenly opened in their faces also remains a mystery. For Valentine's arm was strong, and the dagger her hand held was sharp.
However, as it chanced, the doors remained shut, so that when they came to a little wicket, of solid iron like all the rest, the steel blade of the dagger still shone bright.
Then Valentine la Niña snatched from a nail the long black mantle, with which any who left the House of the Holy Office by that door concealed from the curious their rank or errand. She flung it about John d'Albret's shoulders with a single movement of her arm.