“A girl called Yvonne,” she whispered, “brought it to me at midnight; she conducted me to this house, and I have been waiting here ever since, waiting for you. Yvonne has disappeared and the doors were all locked. There is only the woman who——”
They both turned sharply at the rustle of a dress and stood hand in hand gazing in silence, for there had entered the girl whom André had seen plotting with Onslow at “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold.”
André mechanically whipped off his hat, Denise mechanically answered the curtsey of the lady who had entered, for this was a gentlewoman of their own rank, whose beauty would have adorned the great hall in the Château de Beau Séjour.
“We agreed,” she began quietly, “that Mademoiselle la Marquise was to decide. Monsieur le Vicomte, what I have to say is for the ears of Mademoiselle alone. Permit me to show you where you can wait. I shall not keep you long.” She pointed with her fan to the door and then held out her fingers.
André walked out of the room like one in a dream. The door closed. The two women were alone.
“I can be brief,” the stranger said quietly. “You have heard of ‘No. 101’; you know of the stealing of the secret despatch. I am the thief. I am ‘No. 101.’”
Denise recoiled with a cry of horror, her eyes fixed on the girl’s face with an expression of indignant stupefaction.
“The Vicomte de Nérac,” the stranger proceeded, “knows what you know now, and he will return to Versailles a hero,” she paused, “if he will arrest me. He has the despatch; he has a letter which will convict the Comte de Mont Rouge, who, Mademoiselle, by loaded dice, sent you to be the thief of the Court. The Vicomte has been seen to come here; it has also been discovered that I am in this house, and unless he returns to Versailles with that despatch he will be ruined and Madame de Pompadour will also send you to the Bastille, for she has proof that you were in her room this night. The Vicomte is in great danger, and you were summoned here to save him, for at your bidding alone will he do his duty and arrest the traitress—myself.”
Denise’s indignation had already begun to melt. She freed the necklace at her throat as if it were choking her.
“Shall I now ask the Vicomte to return?” The girl moved towards the door.