Yet, had there been any to watch his movements--which there were not, since the _faquins_ and the _chambrières_ had long since sought their own beds, while the landlord and his spouse sat below in their parlour discussing the good fortune that had this day fallen on their house in the shape of two such arrivals as the Duchesse and the Marquise--the watchers might have thought he took a strange way to reach the room allotted to him. For that room was at the farther end of the corridor which ran to the right of the stairs, while he, stopping at the immediate head of the stairs, knocked at the door directly in front of him, after casting a glance above and below and all around. Very gently he knocked, tapping as lightly as was possible with the knuckle of his forefinger, yet the summons was enough to bring a response. A step and the swish of a long robe were heard upon the carpet within--the carpet which had so revolted the taste of Emérance some hour or two before--then the bolt was shot back gently--drawn back softly, not pushed or dragged--and the woman peered out through the door that she opened a few inches. "So," she said, "it is you. Is there any one about?" "No living soul." "Come in, then," and now she opened the salon door wide enough to give admission to him and closed it again, and, softly as before, pushed the bolt back into its place. When La Truaumont had kissed the hand she held out to him and she had motioned him to a chair in front of the now almost extinct fire, she said: "What of him? How did you leave him? And is he still in Paris?" Imitating the woman's own low tones, which it was natural enough she should assume when receiving a man in her salon in an inn at nearly midnight, La Truaumont said, "He is well. I left him so. And he is still in Paris. Lou--Emérance," he continued, with a laugh, though a low one, "are you happy now?" "Yes. Almost happy." "You should be. But you may yet pay a dear price for your happiness." "Bah!" "You do not fear what failure, treachery, betrayal, may bring to him and you and me and all of us? You do not fear what may be ahead of us?" "I fear nothing on this earth nor in the world beyond, so that he trusts me. I longed to serve him since first I saw him ride at the head of his guards before the King." "And now you are happy?" La Truaumont asked again. "Now I am almost happy." "I rejoice to know it." After which, changing the subject, he said: "Affinius is on his way here. But this you know. He may arrive at any moment. Then also, at any moment, the time for action will begin." "I deemed as much. Well! what are the plans?" "I go to Normandy. You to Paris." "Ah! 'Tis there I would be. Ah! the happy day. But--you! To Normandy? What then of----" with a scornful, bitter intonation, "Madame la Duchesse!"