"
"And what were the two lines?"
Her throat seemed suddenly to have contracted. For an instant
she felt that she could not speak the words, which might send a brave
man to his death.
"It is lucky that the whole paper was not burned," added
Chauvelin, with dry sarcasm, "for it might have fared ill with Armand
St. Just. What were the two lines citoyenne?"
"One was, `I start myself to-morrow,'" she said quietly, "the
other--'If you wish to speak to me, I shall be in the supper-room at
one o'clock precisely.'"
Chauvelin looked up at the clock just above the mantelpiece.
"Then I have plenty of time," he said placidly.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
She was pale as a statue, her hands were icy cold, her head
and heart throbbed with the awful strain upon her nerves. Oh, this
was cruel! cruel! What had she done to have deserved all this? Her
choice was made: had she done a vile action or one that was sublime?
The recording angel, who writes in the book of gold, alone could give
an answer.
"What are you going to do?" she repeated mechanically.
"Oh, nothing for the present. After that it will depend.
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