Perhaps it was not as elegant a set of rooms as his enthusiastic words might have led the woman to expect; perhaps the Darneux curtains and the green printed stuff-hangings were not as fresh as they had once been, or the narrow windows as clean as they might be; or the iron bars outside them--which reminded Emérance, she knew not why, of a gaol-window--as free of rust as they should have been kept. Yet, as she told herself, this was but the _salon_ of an inn in which she would pass some week or two ere flying once more to Paris and the man she loved; therefore it would do very well. The great leather chairs, picked out with gilt, and threadbare by the constant use of strangers, would serve her to sit upon as they had served other travellers before; the odious, awful carpet, with the most horrible subjects from scripture woven into it--and almost worn out of it again by countless feet--at least covered the stone floor; while--had she not often sheltered in worse places! The Hôtel des Muses of Van den Enden, to wit, was worse and more shabby; the Schwarzer Adler at Nancy was nothing like so good. "It will suffice," she said to herself, "to receive Van den Enden in; to harbour in till I can go back to _him_ to learn all that is a-doing and to be done. And then--then--to Louis, my _bien-aimé_, to fortune and happiness extreme, or--to death. Yet, what matters death, if it be shared with him. With him! Ah! how I would welcome it if we may not have life together." And now, an hour later, the woman who called herself the Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville sat over the great fire of pine logs drawn from the forests on the banks of the Rhine, and ate her supper while her maid attended to her. As she made that meal she pondered on what her life was to be in the future, and whether De Beaurepaire would always be as kind and gentle to her as he was now, and would let her have some share in his great fortune or great downfall, whichever might come to him. Ere she quitted Paris, the man she had allowed herself to love with an unsought love had told her that the Spanish Governor of Brussels, with whom he was in communication through Van den Enden with regard to the scheme which was on foot for invading France and for the appropriation of Normandy at least, had at last sent a large sum of money for use in the scheme. "A sum so ample," De Beaurepaire said, "that all employed in helping this cause may now be well equipped. Therefore, you, my fairest of conspirators, must take your share of the spoil," while, as he spoke, he drew from his pocket a wallet stuffed full of drafts and _traites_ drawn by the Bank of Amsterdam and honoured wherever presented, and tossed it into the woman's lap. "It is not yours?" she asked, looking into his eyes. "If so, I will take nought." "Not even from me--the Chief?" "From you less than any. I must be paid to live by those who will profit most--the Spaniards. For the rest, I am Norman. I shall profit as well as you."