“What?” Onslow sat down in consternation.
“It is as I say. Yvonne, the wench, was his accomplice. She fooled you, that peasant girl; that is why our programme was so suddenly altered.”
She walked away with her swinging, graceful carriage of head and body. Had Onslow seen her eyes at that moment it would not have relieved the fears that haunted his face. But when she turned again she was smiling seductively.
“You want the paper,” she said. “Here it is. I keep my word, you see.” She quietly handed him the secret despatch and he pounced on it as a hungry vulture pounces on carrion.
“But how did you get it?” he demanded.
“I was at the Palace when the Chevalier stole it. Stealing it was not an easy task, for the Vicomte de Nérac was on the watch, but when I had got it I came straight here. The Chevalier went back to the inn. It would have been better,” she added carelessly, watching him closely, “if he, too, had come here.”
“Perhaps.”
The girl stooped and fastened her shoe, for she knew that she could not always control her eyes. The shoe fastened she was smiling again at Onslow’s trembling fingers.
“There is blood upon your boot,” she remarked pleasantly, “you have been stepping in blood. Whose, I wonder?” She moved towards the curtain, and listened attentively, while she affected to pull the string.
“So De Nérac knew of the plan?” Onslow growled out. “That explains a good deal, but not all.”