The duke had not needed Bontet’s rousing.  I did not need Bontet to tell me that the coast was clear.  With a last alert glance at the door, I trod softly across the landing and reached the stairs by which Mlle. Delhasse had descended.  Gently I mounted, and on reaching the top of the flight found a door directly facing me.  I turned the handle, but the door was locked.  I rattled the handle cautiously—­and then again, and again.  And presently I heard a light, timid, hesitating step inside; and through the door came, in the voice of Marie Delhasse: 

“Who’s there?”

And I answered at once, boldly, but in a low voice: 

“It is I. Open the door.”

She, in her turn, knew my voice; for the door was opened, and Marie Delhasse stood before me, her face pale with weariness and sorrow, and her eyes wide with wonder.  She drew back before me, and I stepped in and shut the door, finding myself in a rather large, sparely furnished room.  A door opposite was half-open.  On the bed lay a bonnet and a jacket which certainly did not belong to Marie.

Most undoubtedly I had intruded into the bedchamber of that highly respectable lady, Mme. Delhasse.  I can only plead that the circumstances were peculiar.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Strange Good Humor.

For a moment Marie Delhasse stood looking at me; then she uttered a low cry, full of relief, of security, of joy; and coming to me stretched out her hands, saying: 

“You are here then, after all!”

Charmed to see how she greeted me, I had not the heart to tell her that her peril was not past; nor did she give me the opportunity, for went on directly: 

“And you are wounded?  But not badly, not badly, Mr. Aycon?”

“Who told you I was wounded?”

“Why, the duke.  He said that you had been shot by a thief, and were very badly hurt; and—­and—­” She stopped, blushing.

("Where is he?” I remembered the words; my forecast of their meaning had been true.)

“And did what he told you,” I asked softly, “make you leave the convent and come to find me?”

“Yes,” she answered, taking courage and meeting my eyes.  “And then you were not here, and I thought it was a trap.”

“You were right; it was a trap.  I came to find you at the convent, but you were gone:  only by the chance of meeting with a friend who saw the duke’s carriage standing here have I found you.”

“You were seeking for me?”

“Yes, I was seeking for you.”

I spoke slowly, as though hours were open for our talk; but suddenly I remembered that at any moment the old witch might return.  And I had much to say before she came.

“Marie—­” I began eagerly, never thinking that the name she had come to bear in my thoughts could be new and strange from my lips.  But the moment I had uttered it I perceived what I had done, for she drew back further, gazing at me with inquiring eyes, and her breath seemed arrested.  Then, answering the question in her eyes, I said simply: