“What are you doing here?” I cried. “What are you doing here?”
He halted on the edge of the banquette as a hurrying man runs into a wall. He had been all excitement, all fury, as he jumped from his horse; and now, as he looked at me, he seemed to lose his bearings, to be all bewilderment. He cried out my name and stood looking at me like a fool.
“What the devil do you mean by coming here?” I cried. “Did I not write you to stay where you were? How did you get here?” I stepped down on the banquette and seized him by the shoulders. “Did you receive my letter?”
“Yes,” he said, “yes.” For a moment that was as far as he got, and he glanced down the street and then at the heaving beast he had ridden, which stood with head drooping to the kennel. Then he laid hold of me. “Davy, is it true that she has yellow fever? Is it true?”
“Who told you?” I demanded angrily.
“André,” he answered. “André said that the lady here had yellow fever. Is it true?”
“Yes,” I said almost inaudibly.
He let his hand fall from my shoulder, and he shivered.
“May God forgive me for what I have done!” he said. “Where is she?”
“For what you have done?” I cried; “you have done an insensate thing to come here.” Suddenly I remembered the sentry at the gate of Fort St. Charles. “How did you get into the city?” I said; “were you mad to defy the Baron and his police?”