‘So I feel at times,’ Isodore observed with a little sigh. ‘But I am too deeply pledged to draw my hand back now. Without me, the Order is like an army deprived of its general; besides, I am the creature of circumstance; I am the sworn disciple of those whose mission it is to free the down-trodden from oppression and to labour in freedom’s name.’ As she said these words, the sad look upon her brow cleared away like mist before the sun, and a proud light glistened in the wondrous eyes. Half ashamed of her enthusiasm, she turned to the stand by her side, and soon two cups of chocolate were frothed out of the pot, filling the room with its fragrance. Crossing the floor, she handed one of the cups to her new-found friend. For a moment they sat silent, then Isodore turned to her companion smilingly.
‘How would you like to go with me to London?’ she asked.
‘I would follow you to the world’s end!’ was the fervid reply; ‘but there are many difficulties in the way. I have my own living to get, precarious as it is, and I dare not leave this place.’
‘I permit no difficulties to stand in my way,’ Isodore said proudly; ‘to say a thing, with me, is to do it. Let me be candid with you, Valerie. Providence has thrown you in my path, and you will be useful to me; in addition, I have taken a fancy to you. Yes,’ she continued fervently, ‘the time has come—the pear is ripe. You shall come with me to London; you have a wrong as well as I, and you shall see the height of Isodore’s vengeance.’ Saying these words in a voice quivering with passionate intensity, she struck three times on the bell at her side. Immediately, in answer to this, the heavy curtains over the door parted, and a girl entered.
She was Isodore’s living image; the same style and passionate type of face; but she lacked the other’s firm determined mouth and haughtiness of features. She was what the lily is to the passion-flower. Her eyes were bent upon her sister—for she was Lucrece—with the same love and patient devotion one sees in the face of a dog.
‘You rang, Isodore?’ she asked; and again the stranger noticed the great likeness in the voice, save as to the depth and ring of Isodore’s tones.
‘Yes, Lucrece, I rang,’ the sister replied. ‘I have brought a visitor to see you.—Lucrece, this lady is Hector le Gautier’s wife.’
‘Le Gautier’s wife?’ the girl asked with startled face. ‘Then what brings her here? I should not have expected’——
‘You interrupt me, child, in the midst of my explanations. I should have said Le Gautier’s deserted wife.’
‘Ah!’ Lucrece exclaimed, ‘I understand.—Isodore, if you collect under your roof all the women he has wronged and deceived, you will have a large circle. What is she worth to us?’