The man was gray, but not on his account did the
Vicomtesse stay her speech. She forgot him as though he did not exist,
and by one of those swift transitions which thrilled me had gone to the
sobbing Antoinette and taken her in her arms, murmuring endearments of
which our language is not capable. I, too, forgot Auguste. But no
rebuke, however stinging, could make him forget himself, and before we
realized it he was talking again. He had changed his tactics.
"This is my home," he said, "where I might expect shelter and comfort.
You make me an outcast."
Antoinette disengaged herself from Helene with a cry, but he turned away
from her and shrugged.
"A stranger would have fared better. Perhaps you will have more
consideration for a stranger. There is a French ship at the Terre aux
Boeufs in the English Turn, which sails to-night. I appeal to you, Mr.
Ritchie,"--he was still talking in French--"I appeal to you, who are a
man of affairs,"--and he swept me a bow,--"if a captain would risk taking
a fugitive to France for eight hundred livres? Pardieu, I could get no
farther than the Balize for that. Monsieur," he added meaningly, "you
have an interest in this. There are two of us to go."
The amazing effrontery of this move made me gasp. Yet it was neither the
Vicomtesse nor myself who answered him.
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