For answer Louis' eyes met his a moment; then the young man, without speaking, slid across the room to a chair on which lay a book. He took up the volume; it was his. Next he discovered another possession—or so it seemed—approached it and took seisin of it in the same dumb way; and so with another and another. Finally, blinking and looking askance, he passed his eyes from side to side to learn if he had overlooked anything.
But Claude's patience, though prolonged by curiosity, was at an end. He took a step forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing Louis drop his air of mystery, and recoil two paces. "If you don't speak," Claude cried, "I will break every bone in your body! Do you hear, you sneaking rogue? Do you forget that you are in my debt already? Tell me in two words what this dumb show means, or I will have payment for all!"
Master Louis cringed, divided between the desire to flee and the fear of losing his property. "You will be foolish if you make any fuss here," he muttered, his arm raised to ward off a blow. "Besides, I'm going," he continued, swallowing nervously as he spoke. "Let me go."
"Going?"
"Yes."
"Do you mean," Claude exclaimed in astonishment, "that you are going for good?"
"Yes, and if you will take my advice"—with a look of sinister meaning—"you will go too. That is all."
"Why? Why?" Claude repeated.
Louis' only answer was a shudder, which told Claude that if the other did not know all, he knew much. Dismayed and confounded, Mercier stepped back, and, with a secret grin of satisfaction, Louis turned again to his task of searching the room. He found presently that for which he had been looking—his cloak. He disentangled it, with a peculiar look, from a woman's hood, contact with which he avoided with care. That done, he cast it over his arm, and got back into his closet. Claude heard him moving there, and presently he emerged a second time.
Precisely as he did so Claude caught the sound of a light footstep on the stairs, the stair door opened, and Anne, her face weary, but composed, came in. Her first glance fell on Louis, who, with his sack and cloak on his arm, was in the act of closing the closet door. Habit carried her second look to the hearth.