Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/148

136 hastened to play his best card, and, clinging still to the duke’s knees, cried desperately:

“If you’ll spare me, I’ll tell you where she is!”

The duke’s arm fell to his side; and in a changed voice, from which the cruel bantering had fled, while eager excitement filled its place, he cried:

“What? Where who is?”

“The lady—Mlle. Delhasse. A girl I know—there in Avranches—saw her go. She is there now.”

“Where, man, where?” roared the duke, stamping his foot, and menacing the wretch again with his pistol.

I turned to listen, forgetful of quiet little Pierre and his alert beady eyes; yet I kept the pistol on him.

And Lafleur cried:

“At the convent—at the convent, on the shores of the bay!”

“My God!” cried the duke, and his eyes suddenly turned and flashed on mine; and I saw that the necklace was forgotten, that our partnership was ended, and that I again, and no longer the cowering creature before him, was the enemy. And I also, hearing that Marie Delhasse was at the convent, was telling myself that I was a fool not to have thought of it before, and wondering what new impulse had seized the duke’s wayward mind.

Thus neither the duke nor I was attending to the business of the moment. But there was a man of busy brain, whose life taught him to