The other looked up quickly. “Was my brother,” she corrected gently. “The Chevalier de St. Amant is dead.”
“Merciful God!” Denise was leaning against a chair, faint and white.
“He was killed at the inn by the English agent, from whom in this room the Vicomte de Nérac took the secret despatch.” Denise had covered her face with her hands. “And you are right, Mademoiselle; the Chevalier was my brother, who helped me till to-night to be the traitress that I am.”
“Silence,” Denise cried in anguish. “Oh, for God’s sake be silent!”
“The truth,” replied the other in her passionless voice, “can never be silent.”
Denise walked to and fro, wrung by a torture unendurable to a woman’s soul.
Suddenly she paused. “Do you know,” she demanded, “that your brother saved the Vicomte de Nérac when he might have ruined him?”
“I know more than that. Yes, Mademoiselle, I know that what he did was done because he loved you. That also is the truth.”
Denise caught at her arms. The question in her gesture and her eyes needed no words. The girl rose and faced her.
“When we parted at the foot of Madame de Pompadour’s stairs his last words were, ‘Unless Denise or the Vicomte gets the paper Denise is ruined.’ The paper was in my possession and my brother went back to the inn to explain to the English agent why he could not have it.”