Antoine received all these good wishes and good counsels with an air of preoccupation. Fifteen hundred francs! it was a fortune. Still, what it was was nothing to what was in the pocket-book which lay so carelessly on the bureau. A thirst, a hunger got into his mind. Was it his fault? was it not rather that of the Englishman with his careless ways? Never, never, in all his life, had he seen what he believed to be so much money before. Instinctively his eyes glanced round under cover of his dark brows. There was the window on one side, a window which gave upon the street, within reach of a man of Antoine’s height; and on the other the door. The bed was at the other side of the room. A clever person might get through a great deal of work without even awaking the sleeper, without doing any more harm. Helen went out to the door an hour or two later, when her father--who complained of fatigue and agitation, and was querulous and peevish with her, as if the visit of the English strangers was her fault--had gone to bed. It was still not very late. Everything was in full activity at the Lion d’Or, and the sound of the voices, and now and then a scrap of song, still sounded into the quiet air of the night, softened by the distance and by the milder atmosphere, humid and soft, which had succeeded the long frosts. It made the girl’s heart beat to see some one standing waiting for her in the shadow of the house. The moon was shining behind, and all in front of Père Goudron’s was in the blackest shadow. Helen had never had a lover. It was not of that she thought now, as she opened the door cautiously; but yet there was something in this meeting which made her heart beat strangely. Young Ashton came close to the door. “I have told them I always walk at night; they think everything possible to the eccentricity of an Englishman,” he said with a half smile, “so that I am at your disposal whatever you may be going to do.” “We are to do nothing,” she said. “He will keep his room; he will say he is ill. Indeed he is not well, Mr Ashton; something is the matter with him, I cannot tell what. He is nervous, he is not himself; he says he has no courage to go away. Perhaps you will not stay long at the _château_?” “You wish us to be gone?” he said, with a tone of vexation. “Can I help it?” said Helen. “Do you think I shall have a moment’s rest till you are gone?--or after?” she added mournfully; “for how can I tell who may come next?--some one not so kind as you.” “That is what I think,” he said anxiously; “you will never feel safe. If it were I that was the danger, whatever it might cost me, I would go; but it is not I. It is John, and he has come to see his future wife. One cannot expect him to go, do you think? I am not in his case.” He said this with much marked meaning, and looked at Helen so closely, that she could not but remark it, and wonder, with a nervous tremour, what did he mean?