"None of your business! Hand it here."

The woman poured out something that looked like wine, and dropped a spoonful between the girl's lips. She had so much difficulty in doing so, that Robeccal took a knife from his pocket, and inserted it between Francine's close shut teeth. As soon as the liquid disappeared down the girl's throat she started.

"You are not poisoning her?" asked Robeccal.

"Am I a fool? Hark! I hear a carriage. Take this girl up-stairs."

Robeccal s.n.a.t.c.hed Francine from the sofa, and ran lightly up the stairs.

The room above was elegantly furnished, and had long windows looking out upon the garden, which seemed to stretch out indefinitely. In reality it ended at no very great distance in a wall sixteen feet in height.

As Robeccal laid the girl on the bed, he looked at her again with some anxiety. She was absolutely motionless.

There came a knock at the door. Robeccal started.

"That must be he!" said La Roulante.

It was in fact Talizac, who had arrived. Fernando was with him, but the Vicomte had knocked with the handle of his cane. It was not the signal agreed upon, and the door was not opened. Suddenly Frederic uttered an oath.

"Oh! it is he!" said Robeccal. "That is better than a visiting card!"

But La Roulante insisted on a little argument through the door before she would consent to move the heavy bolts.

"d.a.m.ned sorceress!" cried Talizac, "you deserve that I should cut your face with my cane, for keeping me waiting so long."

La Roulante made no reply to this gentle address, and Talizac, with blood-stained face and torn clothing, entered the house, followed by Fernando, who was as dignified and correct in costume as he always was.

When Talizac reached the salon, he dropped into a chair. "Water! for the love of Heaven, give me some water!" he murmured. He felt almost ill, and would have been glad of a few hours of rest. "Is she here?" he asked.

"Yes, she is here," answered La Roulante.

Talizac rose. "I must repair the disorder of my toilette," he said.

"Robeccal, come with me."

On Talizac's return, he asked La Roulante where the Marquise was.

"Oh! she is asleep," was the reply.

"Show me where she is, and move a little faster!"

"It strikes me, sir, that you are not over polite," muttered Robeccal.

"Let him have his own way," sneered the giantess; "he is in a hurry to see his darling, and has no time to be civil!" She made a grotesque reverence as she spoke. She preceded the Vicomte to show him the way.

"Do you know," she cried, stopping on the stairs, "that the girl is as pretty as a pink."

"That is none of your affairs," answered Talizac, roughly, "I pay you to serve me, not to talk!"

"You are a little hard on us, I think," said La Roulante, with a sneer, "but I suppose when people are rich they can say and do as they please!"

"Is that the room?" Talizac asked, as he reached the top of the stairs, "if so, open the door at once, or I will force it!"

"No, you won't injure my house like that! But you want to see her, do you? Very well, I will show her to you, then."

She quickly slid back a narrow panel in the door, which permitted him to look into the room.

"Look in, gentlemen and ladies," said La Roulante, in the sing-song tone of a showman at the circus, "look in, it won't cost you anything!" And then the creature laughed.

Talizac did not heed her, but leaning toward the open panel looked at Francine, who lay with her arms folded on her breast like a child. Her hair was loosened, and nothing could have been lovelier than this face with its delicate features, reminding one of Raphael's pictures. Talizac looked, and forgot that this child was the victim of a miserable conspiracy. He was so impressed by her beauty and her innocence that he was ready to kneel before her. But La Roulante touched his arm with a cynical laugh.

"Open the door, I say!"

La Roulante closed the panel with a snap, and slowly drew a key from her pocket and stood with it in her fingers, and then said quietly and firmly:

"If I unlock that door, it will cost you twenty thousand francs!"

Talizac started back. "What do you mean?" he exclaimed.

"Just what I say, twenty thousand francs!"

"But this is abominable. Have I not paid the sum agreed upon?"

"A trifle, yes; but that won't do!"

"It is robbery, bare-faced robbery--"

"None of that, sir, you are not so honest yourself, that you can afford to taunt others!"

He looked at her in astonishment, and then rushed at the door as if to force it open. She called for Robeccal, who hurried to obey her summons.

Talizac called Fernando, and Robeccal turned back. Drawing an enormous knife, he said, fiercely:

"Don't you interfere! My wife will settle her own matters with this gentleman!"

Fernando's att.i.tude during the fight between Frederic and Montferrand has already informed us as to the courage of this man. Perhaps he was wise in not risking his life to defend Talizac, whom he estimated at his proper value. He was interested in the Fongereues family only as an emissary of that Society which at that time labored to strangle Liberalism at its birth.

"Very good!" answered Fernando, shrugging his shoulders indifferently, but as he did not propose to be mixed up in any disagreeable affair in this house, he determined to take himself off.

The giantess was not alarmed by Talizac's mad attempt. She calmly lifted him by the collar and landed him on the stairs, half way down.

"Robbers! Murderers!" shouted the Vicomte.

"Confound you! hold your tongue!" said Robeccal, flourishing the knife which had such an effect on Fernando.

"Why do you not keep your word?" angrily asked the Vicomte; "you promised--"

"People like us do not keep our promises," answered La Roulante, cynically. "You paid us for carrying off the girl, you paid us for giving her a shelter; we have done both. But if you wish to enter that room it will cost you twenty thousand francs!"

"But that is an enormous sum!" moaned Talizac.

"Not to a man like you, who has a grandee for a father, and a mother rolling in wealth. She has diamonds, plenty of them!"