Mrs. Rondeau was sitting in her lower room, sewing by the light of a weaver's oil-lamp which hung from a string fastened to the mantel-piece. The place was very bare. Few of the little ornaments that usually decorate even a poor home remained, and the good woman's eyes were red with recent crying. The loom in the upper part of the house was empty, and so was the cupboard, or very nearly so.
"There goes the quarter," she said, as she heard the chiming of a distant clock. "I wish I'd gone myself instead of sending the poor child. What would Peter say if he knew—ah! and what would that old flinty-hearted wretch say if he knew! How I wish she would come, even if she came back without the money!"
The night had set in gloomily enough, as Sara Rondeau went quickly through the now almost deserted streets on her way to a dim shop, where three golden balls hung to an iron bracket at the door, to show that a pawnbroker's business was carried on within. It was not the first visit she had made to this establishment, for the poor little household ornaments, the loss of which had left her home so bleak and bare, were now in the safekeeping of the proprietor; but still she shrank back as she approached a dim side entrance in a narrow street, and drawing her bonnet closer over her face, pushed open a baize door, and entered a dark passage divided on one side into a row of narrow cells, separated from each other by wooden partitions.
She made so little noise, and still kept so far back in the pervading gloom, that her presence was unnoticed by a shabby-looking man, who was just then engaged in earnest conversation with somebody in the next box. Before she had spoken, and while she was yet in the shadow of the partition, she thought she recognized the voice of the person who was speaking as that of Bashley, and held her breath to listen, for a name was mentioned which sent the blood back to her heart and made her feel sick and faint.
"Well, as long as everything's safe," said the pawnbroker's assistant, who leaned his elbows on the counter, so that his head was close to the partition; "but we've got a good deal here now, you know, and if the thing should be found out—."
"Yah! who's to find it out?" retorted Bashley; "I tell you everything's ready, and the risk's mine. Old Dormeur's half childish; and as to the young one, I tell you he's safe enough for a week, if I like to keep him so. He'd an appointment to supper with the old man to-night, and he won't keep it. If he's not on his way now to see the girl, he's tied up neck and heels, by this time, and in a safe place out of harm's way. I tell you I can be back here in an hour or two. You're too deep in now to draw back; and besides, who can swear to raw silk? I shall go first, and look after the girl; then I mean to call on the old man, and send him out on a wild-goose chase. The rest's easy, for I've a key, and a light cart at the back of the warehouse will bring the silk here in no time. The game's in my hands now, and I shall play to win."
"But when the young one tells his version of the story?"
"How can he? He comes out without knowing where from; and if ever he did, he's been in an empty house. A pretty story! No, no; if the old man believes it, he won't face the disgrace, for he more than half suspects his grandson as it is. Come now, will you or won't you?"
Sara Rondeau, crouching by the door, hears this with an undefined fear which paralyses her for a moment, but leaves one thought in her troubled mind.
Some foul plot is hatching against Antoine, and she is powerless to hinder it. No—one thing she can do, if only she can creep back unnoticed. She will use all her strength to reach Mr. Dormeur's house, and tell him what she has heard.