"From my hand, Count; this hand which held them both before I went to bed last night."
"Monsieur!" The Count fell back from him as if from some supernatural presence. "You found them? You held them? You took possession of them last night? How did you get them out of the house?"
"I have not done so yet."
"But can you? Oh, monsieur, wizard though you are, can you get them past her guards? Can you, monsieur—can you?"
"Watch for the light at the window, Count. It will not be waved unless it is safe for you to come and the pearl is already out of the house."
"And the letter, monsieur—the damning letter?"
Cleek smiled one of his strange, inscrutable smiles.
"Ask me that to-morrow, Count," he said. "You shall hear something, you and madame, that will surprise you both," then twisted round on his heel and walked hurriedly away.
And all that day and all that night he danced attendance upon madame, and sang to her, and handed her bedroom candle to her as he had done the night before, and gave back jest for jest and returned her merry badinage in kind.
Nor did he change in that when the fateful to-morrow came. From morning to night he was at her side, at her beck and call, doing nothing that was different from the doings of yesterday, save that at evening he locked the mongrel dog up in his room instead of carrying him about. And the dog, feeling its loneliness, or, possibly, famishing—for he had given it not a morsel of food since he found it—howled and howled until the din became unbearable.