‘Hush!’ the stouter figure muttered in a tone of warning. ‘Speak lower. Who are you, and what do you here?’
‘I am here,’ I answered respectfully, ‘commissioned by a friend of the lady I have named, to convey her to a place of safety.’
‘Mon dieu!’ was the sharp answer. ‘Now? It is impossible.’
‘No,’ I murmured, ‘not now, but to-night. The moon rises at half-past two. My horses need rest and food. At three I will be below this window with the means of escape, if mademoiselle choose to use them.’
I felt that they were staring at me through the dusk, as though they would read my breast. ‘Your name, sir?’ the shorter figure murmured at last, after a pause which was full of suspense and excitement.
‘I do not think my name of much import at present, Mademoiselle,’ I answered, reluctant to proclaim myself a stranger. ‘When—’
‘Your name, your name, sir!’ she repeated imperiously, and I heard her little heel rap upon the stone floor of the balcony.
‘Gaston de Marsac,’ I answered unwillingly.
They both started, and cried out together. ‘Impossible!’ the last speaker exclaimed, amazement and anger in her tone, ‘This is a jest, sir. This—’
What more she would have said I was left to guess, for at that moment her attendant I had no doubt now which was mademoiselle and which Fanchette—suddenly laid her hand on her mistress’s mouth and pointed to the room behind them. A second’s suspense, and with a wanting gesture the two turned and disappeared through the window.