Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/35

 She regretted that she had, unwittingly, read his letter. When she tried to put it out of her mind she found that she could not do so.

What a queer phrase—the Falcon! She had always connected the word with knights and the days of chivalry. Were there falcons to-day? Or was it a kind of code word for something else? Edith did not know. "It must be code, after all. He said he had received a business letter," mused Edith, drowsily, and straightway went to bed and to sleep.

By now the lighted windows of the Château had blinked into darkness. The twisted streets of Quebec had long been silent. The pleasure-stage was deserted by its guests, the curtain drawn. Players and attendants alike slept.

Somewhere in the old French city under the height chimes rang out from a cathedral tower. Answering bells sent their notes forth under the stars. A chorus of ironlike harmony welled from invisible sources.

Though the pleasure-stage was dark in the hours before dawn, the chimes of Quebec did not sleep. The roofs of the city were still, under the eye of the moon. A solitary note of carriage bells struck into the chimes—from the slope of a dark street.

Monsey, who had been dozing, dressed, in his chair, swore softly and leaped to his feet.

"Confound the bells!" he muttered, lifting clenched hands to his head.

In the confused instant of wakening from heavy, troubled sleep he had fancied the chimes were human voices. Into his senses had come the distant,