The candle fell from her hand. In the darkness he heard her sob. “Gone,” she muttered feebly. “Gone!”
“Quick, the King is coming! For God’s sake, fly. There is the key—the secret staircase. I will—can—explain later.”
He hurried her towards the doorway with a terrible yet tender energy of love.
“André,” she cried, “André, it is gone.”
“Oh, fly; fly, for God’s sake!”
“But it is gone—the secret despatch; it is not there—stolen!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. She was sobbing on his shoulder with fear and horror.
The candle fell from her hand. “Gone!” she muttered feebly, “gone!”
The words acted like a galvanic shock. Gone—stolen already! This was more—much more—than he had dreamed of. The full meaning of the situation was revealed and it stunned him into action. In a second he had the candle alight, and, mastering the faintness that gripped him, dashed at the escritoire. It was perfectly empty. The secret despatch was not in it. Another thief had already secured it—“No. 101”! He put the candle very slowly down on the table and turned to Denise, who was standing in the middle of the room white to the lips.
André laughed, as men will laugh when tears and passion are futile. That laugh at his own outwitting by a girl and her English accomplice rang through the room. The traitors had been before him. The secret despatch was already in the hands of the King’s enemies, of Madame de Pompadour’s enemies, of his. He and she were ruined. Nothing could save them now. In a few hours the English Government could publish the truth, the Court could proclaim Madame by the evidence of her own hand an intriguer against the King, and Denise and he would be found here in the darkness with an empty escritoire by Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, to whom its contents were a matter of life and death. Hopeless to struggle now. Love had inspired a plan, but fate was stronger than love. Madame de Pompadour must come, and hear what had happened, from his lips. He had ruined her, ruined himself, ruined Denise. Louis alone could lie. Louis by a lie alone would escape. André had matched himself, in his pride, against “No. 101,” a girl, and this was the result.