“You poor old dear, what’s wrong with you? Have you gone crazy?” He turned towards her: “Please, Madame Carola, leave me. I must--I absolutely must be alone. I’ll see you to-morrow morning.” Then, as after all it was only himself that he blamed, he kissed her gently on the shoulder: “Ah! you don’t know what a dreadful thing we’ve done. No, no! You don’t know. You can never know.” III The swindling concern that went under the pompous name of _Crusade for the Deliverance of the Pope_, extended its shady ramifications through more than one of the French departments; Protos, the false monk of Virmontal, was not its only agent, nor the Comtesse de Saint-Prix its only victim. All its victims, however, were not equally accommodating, even if all the agents proved equally dexterous. Even Protos, Lafcadio’s old school-mate, was obliged, after this exploit of his, to keep the sharpest possible look-out; he lived in continual apprehension that the clergy (the real clergy) would get wind of the affair, and expended as much ingenuity in covering his rear as in pushing his attack; but his versatility was great, and, moreover, he was admirably seconded; from one end to the other of the band (which went by the name of the Millipede) there reigned extraordinary harmony and discipline. Protos was informed that same evening by Baptistin of the stranger’s arrival, and no little alarmed at hearing that he came from Pau, he hurried off at seven o’clock the next morning to see Carola. She was still in bed. The information which he gathered from her, the confused account that she gave of the events of the previous night, the anguish of the _pilgrim_ (this was what she called Amédée), his protestations, his tears, left no further doubt in his mind. Decidedly his Pau preachifying had brought forth fruit--but not precisely the kind of fruit which Protos might have wished for; he would have to keep an eye on this simple-minded crusader, whose clumsy blunderings might give the whole show away.... “Come! let me pass,” said he abruptly to Carola. This expression might seem peculiar, because Carola was lying in bed; but Protos was never one to be stopped by the peculiar. He put one knee on the bed, passed the other over the woman’s body and pirouetted so cleverly that, with a slight push of the bed, he found himself between it and the wall. Carola was no doubt accustomed to this performance, for she asked simply: “What are you going to do?” “Make up as a _curé_,” answered Protos, no less simply. “Will you come back this way?” Protos hesitated a moment, and then: “You’re right; it’s more natural.” So saying, he stooped and touched the spring of a secret door, which was concealed in the thickness of the wall and was so low that the bed hid it completely. Just as he was passing through the door, Carola seized him by the shoulder. “Listen,” she said with a kind of gravity, “you’re not to hurt this one. I won’t have it.”