‘Listen!’ the girl said in a hushed voice. ‘You do not comprehend what its possession means to you. It is the symbol, the sign of membership of the strongest political Brotherhood in Europe. If it was known to be in your possession, your life would pay the forfeit; it would be regained at all hazards. If one of the Brotherhood knew another had deliberately parted with it, I would not give a hair for his life.’
‘And he is in danger of his life!’ the woman cried, starting to her feet. ‘Give it me, that I may return it to him.’
‘No!’ was the stern reply; ‘he does not get off so easily. We do not temper the wind thus to traitors.—Woman! what is Hector le Gautier to you, that you should do this favour for him?’
‘He is a man, and his life is in danger. It is my duty’——
‘Mark me!’ Isodore replied with stern emphasis. ‘I have not the eyes of a hawk and the hearing of a hare for nothing. I was opposite you in the saloon, and I know that something more than womanly sympathy prompts you. I saw the struggle in Le Gautier’s face; I saw you start and tremble as he spoke to you; I saw you change the coin for one of yours, and I saw you weeping over it just now. Woman! I ask again what is he to you?’
Slowly the words came from the other’s lips, as if forced from them by some mesmeric influence. ‘You are right,’ she said; ‘for—heaven help me—he is my husband! I am Valerie le Gautier.—Now, tell me who you are.’
‘Tell me something more. How long has he been your husband?’
‘Nine years—nine long, weary years of coldness and neglect, hard words, and, to my shame, hard blows. But he tired of me, as he tires of all his toys; he always tires when the novelty wears off.’
‘Yes,’ Isodore said softly, ‘as he tired of me.’
‘You!’ exclaimed Valerie le Gautier, starting—‘you! What! and have you, too, fallen a victim to his treachery? If you have known him, been a victim to his perfidy, then, from the bottom of my heart, I pity you.’