Monsieur Gratiot produced his tabatière and took a pinch of snuff. I summoned my courage for the topic which had trembled all the evening on my lips.
“Some years ago, Monsieur Gratiot, a lady and a gentleman were rescued on the Wilderness Trail in Kentucky. They left us for St. Louis. Did they come here?”
Monsieur Gratiot leaned forward quickly.
“They were people of quality?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
“And their name?”
“They—they did not say.”
“It must have been the Clives,” he cried; “it can have been no other. Tell me—a woman still beautiful, commanding, of perhaps eight and thirty? A woman who had a sorrow?—a great sorrow, though we have never learned it. And Mr. Clive, a man of fashion, ill content too, and pining for the life of a capital?”
“Yes,” I said eagerly, my voice sinking near to a whisper, “yes—it is they. And are they here?”
Monsieur Gratiot took another pinch of snuff. It seemed an age before he answered:—