erved a foolish master. It helped me that having been ten years in
Italy when I was younger, I acquired the language so well as to be able
to impose even upon Fortunio. In that lay a circumstance which at once
disarmed suspicion, and if I stay not so long as it shall take the dye
to wear from my hair and beard and the staining from my face, I shall
have little to fear."

"But, monsieur," she cried, "you have everything to fear!" And alarm
grew in her eyes.

But he laughed again for answer. "I have faith in my luck, mademoiselle,
and I think I am on the tide of it at present. I little hoped when I
made my way into Condillac in this array that I should end, by virtue
of my pretended ignorance of French, in being appointed gaoler to you. I
had some ado to keep the joy from my eyes when I heard them planning it.
It is a thing that has made all else easy."

"But what can you do alone, monsieur?" she asked him; and there was a
note almost of petulance in her voice.

He moved to the window, and leaned his elbow on the sill. The light was
fast fading. "I know not yet. But I am here to contrive a means. I shall
think and watch."

"You know in what hourly peril I am placed," she cried, and suddenly
remembering that he must have overheard and understood the Dowager's
words, a sudden heat came to her cheeks to recede again and leave them
marble-pale. And she thanked Heaven that in the dusk and in the shadow
where she stood he could but ill make out her face.

"If you think that I have been rash in returning--"

"No, no, not rash, monsieur; noble and brave above all praise. I would
indeed I could tell you how noble and brave I account your action."

"It is as nothing to the bravery required to let Rabecque do this
hideous work upon a face for which I have ever entertained some measure
of respect."

He jested, sooner than enlighten her that it was his egregious pride
had fetched him back when he was but a few hours upon his journey
Pariswards, his inability to brook the ridicule that would be his when
he announced at the Luxembourg that failure had attended him.

"Ah, but what can you do alone?" she repeated.

"Give me at least a day or two to devise some means; let me look round
and take the measure of this gaol. Some way there must be. I have not
come so far and so successfully to be beaten now. Still," he continued,
"if you think that I overrate my strength or my resource, if you
would sooner that I sought men and mad