“I am not able to express my gratitude, monsieur,” began the countess, in a faint voice, extending both hands toward M. Cambray. “I hope you will allow me to call you my friend. I shall never cease to thank you! Amélie, my love, kiss this hand; look at this face; impress it on your heart, and never, never forget it, for this brave gentleman rescued you from a most horrible fate.”
M. Cambray listened to these profuse expressions of gratitude, but with heedless ear. His thoughts were with the fugitives. He longed to know if they had escaped pursuit. While the countess was speaking he could not help but think that a great ado was being made because a little countess had been abandoned half clad in the public street. He knew of another little maid who had been treated with far greater cruelty.
His reply was brief:
“Your little daughter is very charming.”
The mother sat upright with sudden decision, and unfastened the ivory locket from the black ribbon around her neck. It contained a portrait of the little countess Amélie.
“If the memory of the little foundling you rescued is dear to you, monsieur, then accept this from me, and think sometimes of your protégée.”
It was a noble gift indeed! The lovely countess had given him her most valued ornament.
M. Cambray expressed his thanks, pressed his lips to the countess’s hand, and kissed the little Amélie, who smilingly lifted her face for the caress. Then he bowed courteously, and returned to the salon. He was met at the door by the Marquis de Fervlans, who exclaimed reproachfully:
“What, you are going to desert us already? Then, if you will go, you must allow me to offer you my carriage.” He gave his arm to the old gentleman, and conducted him to the vestibule, where, among a number of liveried servants, stood a trim hussar in Swiss uniform.
The marquis ordered the hussar to fetch his carriage, and, when it drew up before the door, himself assisted M. Cambray to enter it. Then he shook hands cordially with the old gentleman, stepped back to the doorway, and watched the carriage roll swiftly across the square.
When the servant Jocrisse had closed the boudoir door behind M. Cambray, the suffering countess sprang lightly from her couch, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother her laughter; the little Amélie, overwhelmed by merriment, buried her face in her mother’s skirts; the maid giggled discreetly; while Jocrisse, clasping his rotund stomach with both hands, bent his head toward his knees, and betrayed his suppressed hilarity by his shaking shoulders. Even the more important of the two physicians pursed his lips into a smile, and proffered his snuff-box to his colleague, who, smothering with laughter, whispered:
“Are we not capital actors?”
Meanwhile M. Cambray drove rapidly in the Marquis de Fervlans’s carriage through the streets of Paris. He was buried in thought. He glanced only now and then from the window. He was not altogether satisfied with himself that he was riding in a carriage which belonged to so important a person—a gentleman whose name he had never heard until that day.
Suddenly he was surprised to find the carriage entering a gateway. A carriage could not enter the gate at his lodgings! The Swiss hussar sprang from the box, opened the carriage door, and M. Cambray found himself confronted by a sergeant with a drawn sword.
“This is not my residence,” said the old gentleman.
“Certainly not,” replied the sergeant. “This is the Prison of St. Pélagie.”
“What have I to do here? My name is Alfred Cambray.”
“You are the very one we have been expecting.”
And now it was M. Cambray’s turn to laugh merrily.
When M. Cambray’s pockets had been searched, and everything suspicious confiscated, he was conducted to a room in the second story, in which he was securely locked. He had plenty of time to look about his new lodgings.
Apparently the room had been occupied by many an important personage. The walls were covered with names. Above some of them impromptu verses had been scribbled; others had perpetuated their profiles; and still others had drawn caricatures of those who had been the means of lodging them here. The guillotine also figured among the illustrations.
The new lodger was not specially surprised to find himself a prisoner; what he could not understand was the connection between the two events. How came it about that the courteous and sympathetic Marquis de Fervlans’s carriage had brought him here from the palace of the deeply grateful countess?
He was puzzling his brain over this question when his door suddenly opened, and a morose old jailer entered with some soup and bread for the prisoner.
“Thanks, I have dined,” said M. Cambray.
The jailer placed the food on the table, with the words: “I want you to understand, citizen, that if you have any idea of starving yourself to death, we shall pour the soup down your throat.”
Toward evening another visitor appeared. The door was opened with loud clanking of chains and bolts, and a tall man crossed the threshold. It was the Marquis de Fervlans.
His manner now was not so condescending and sympathetic. He approached the prisoner, and said in a commanding tone that was evidently intended to be intimidating:
“You have been betrayed, and may as well confess everything; it is the only thing that will save you.”
A scornful smile crossed the prisoner’s lips. “That is the usual form of address to a criminal who has been arrested for burglary.”
The marquis laughed.
“I see, M. Cambray, that you are not the sort of person to be easily frightened. It is useless to adopt the usual prison methods with you. Very well; then we will try a different one. It may be that we shall part quite good friends! What do I say? Part? Say, rather, that we may continue together, hand in hand! But to the point. You have a friend who shared the same apartment with you. This gentleman deserted you last night, I believe?”
“The ingrate!” ironically ejaculated M. Cambray.
“Beg pardon, but there was also a little girl secreted in your apartment, whom no one ever saw—”
“Pardon me, monsieur,” interrupted Cambray, “but it is not the custom for French gentlemen to spy out or chatter about secrets which relate to the fair sex.”
“I am not talking about the sort of female you refer to, monsieur, but about a child—a girl of perhaps twelve years.”
“How, pray, can one determine the age of a lady whom no one has seen?”
“Certain telltale circumstances give one a clue,” retorted De Fervlans. “Why, for instance, do you keep a doll in your rooms?”
“A doll? I play with it myself sometimes! I am a queer old fellow with peculiar tastes.”
“Very good; we will allow that you are telling the truth. What have you to say to the fact that you took to your apartment yesterday evening a stray child, and an hour later your friend came out of the house with another child, wrapped in the shawl which had enveloped the lost child when you found her—”
“Have they been overtaken?” hastily interrupted Cambray, forgetting himself.
“No, they have not—more’s the pity!” returned the marquis. “My detective was not clever enough to perceive the difference between the eight-year-old girl who was carried to your apartments at ten o’clock, and the twelve-year-old little maid whom your friend brought downstairs at eleven, pretending that he was going in search of the lost child’s mother. Besides, everything conspired to aid your friend to escape. He was too cunning for us, and got such a start of his pursuers that there was no use trying to follow him. We do not even know in what direction he has gone.”