"Then," she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do why were you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?"
"Because," he said, flushing under her eyes, "it—it is not easy for me to do. And I did not see my way."
"It looked like it."
"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet of letters from his room—and you go there when you please—and he is yours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lest you bring him to the scaffold!"
"Bring him to the scaffold?"
"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest." Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued, his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "it might be done this minute. This minute!"
"It might," the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not be done either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in the letters, and how you come to know about them."
Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondel the Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged farther by her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the story which Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far with her; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed to bear the stamp of truth?
"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end.
"Is it not enough?"