Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/137

Rh shrank from being heard. It was repeated, louder, yet hardly audibly. The duke, striding on the tip of his toes, transferred the pistols from the table back to the drawer, and stood with his hand inside the open drawer: I slid my weapon into my pocket; and then he trod softly across the floor to the door.

“One moment!” I whispered.

And I stooped and picked up the Cardinal’s Necklace and put it back where it had lain before, pushing its box under the table by a hasty movement of my foot—for the duke, after a nod of intelligence, was already opening the door. I drew back in the shadow behind it and waited.

“What do you want?” asked the duke.

And then a girl stepped hastily into the room and closed the door quickly and noiselessly behind her. I saw her face: she was my old friend Suzanne. When her eyes fell on me, she started in surprise, as well she might; but the caution and fear, which had made her knock almost noiseless, her tread silent, and her face all astrain with alert alarm, held her back from any cry.

“Never mind him,” said the duke. “That’s nothing to do with you. What do you want?”

“Hush! Speak low. I thought you would still be up, as you told me to refill the lamp and have it burning. There’s—there’s something going on.”

She spoke in a quick, urgent whisper, and in her agitation remembered no deference in her words of address.