‘I hope you don’t run any risk yourself in telling me what you have told me this evening?’ said Mora after a few seconds of silence.
‘If it were known that I had broken my oath, as I have broken it but now, I should be sentenced to the same fate as De Miravel. But that matters not. I have long owed madame a debt of gratitude; to-night I have endeavoured to pay it.’
‘You have more, far more than paid it. You may have broken your oath, as you say, but you have done all that lay in your power to save a fellow-creature’s life.’
‘For your sake, madame—not for his, the traitor!’ muttered Jules.
If Mora heard, she took no notice. ‘You must not remain here another moment,’ she said. ‘You have run too much risk already. Perhaps I may be able to have a few words with you in private to-morrow. You say that Monsieur De Miravel must go away at once—to-night?’
‘At once. If he lingers here over to-morrow’—— He ended with one of his expressive shrugs.
Mora shuddered. ‘Suppose he refuses to believe what I tell him, and puts it down as an invention for the purpose of frightening him away?’
‘If madame will say these words to him, “The right hand of the Czar is frozen,” Monsieur De Miravel will know that she speaks the truth.’
A moment later the door opened and closed noiselessly, and Mora was alone.