and a voice called:

"Angelique!"

"Is that you, father?" she asked, suppressing her agitation.

"Yes. Is your husband here?"

"We have just come in."

"Tell him I want to speak to him. Ask him to come to my room. It's
important."

"Very well, father, I'll send him to you."

She listened for a few seconds, then returned to the boudoir where her
husband was and said:

"I am sure my father is still there."

He moved as though to go out:

"In that case, if he wants to speak to me...."

"My father is not alone," she said, quickly, blocking his way.

"Who is with him?"

"His nephew, Jacques d'Emboise."

There was a moment's silence. He looked at her with a certain
astonishment, failing quite to understand his wife's attitude. But,
without pausing to go into the matter:

"Ah, so that dear old d'Emboise is there?" he chuckled. "Then the fat's
in the fire? Unless, indeed...."

"My father knows everything," she said. "I overheard a conversation
between them just now. His nephew has read certain letters.... I
hesitated at first about telling you.... Then I thought that my
duty...."

He studied her afresh. But, at once conquered by the queerness of the
situation, he burst out laughing:

"What? Don't my friends on board ship burn my letters? And they have let
their prisoner escape? The idiots! Oh, when you don't see to everything
yourself!... No matter, its distinctly humorous.... D'Emboise versus
d'Emboise.... Oh, but suppose I were no longer recognized? Suppose
d'Emboise himself were to confuse me with himself?"

He turned to a wash-hand-stand, took a towel, dipped it in the basin and
soaped it and, in the twinkling of an eye, wiped the make-up from his
face and altered the set of his hair:

"That's it," he said, showing himself to Angelique under the aspect in
which she had seen him on the night of the burglary in Paris. "I feel
more comfortable like this for a discussion with my father-in-law."

"Where are you going?" she cried, flinging herself in front of the door.

"Why, to join the gentlemen."

"You shall not pass!"

"Why not?"

"Suppose they kill you?"

"Kill me?"

"That's what they mean to do, to kill you ... to hide your body
somewhere.... Who would know of it?"

"Very well," he said, "from their point of view, they are quite right.
But, if I don't go to them, they will come here. That door won't stop
them.... Nor you, I'm thinking. Therefore, it's better to have done with
it."