"Come," she cried, springing to her feet as she heard the cathedral clock strike twelve; as, too, she saw the last spark of the last log go out. "See the fire is dead and it is late. Leave me now and go quietly. To-morrow we will talk more on this." "To-morrow Van den Enden should be here." "That is well. Now go," while, opening the door and looking out to see that all was quiet in passages and corridors, she sent La Truaumont away and softly pushed the bolt back into its place. CHAPTER IX Humphrey West had sought his bed some time before La Truaumont had descended to speak to Fleur de Mai and his companion, and, consequently, ere that adventurer had obtained admission to Emérance's salon he was fast asleep. Fast asleep and sleeping well and softly, too, when gradually there crept into the cells of his brain, heavy with sleep though they were, the drowsy fancy that he was carrying on a conversation with some other person. This idea, however--as consciousness became stronger and stronger--especially after he had rolled over once in his warm, soft bed, and, once, had thrown out his arms after rubbing his eyes--was succeeded by a second. The idea, the fancy that, instead of being engaged in conversation with another person, that person was himself engaged in talking to some one else. A few moments more and Humphrey was wide awake and sitting up in his bed, while wondering more particularly whence the sound of those voices proceeded than what the purport of the conversation might be. For, as was customary with all travellers in these days of insecurity of life and property, when no one slept in undoubted safety outside their own particular houses--if they did so much even there!--Humphrey had, before proceeding to rest, made inspection of the room in which he was. That is to say, he had peered behind the tapestry that hung down all round the room over the bare, whitewashed walls; he had looked behind the bed and its great hangings, full of dust and flue--to look underneath it was impossible since the frame of the bedstead was always at this period within an inch or so of the floor, and only high enough to permit of the castors being inserted underneath it. In doing all this he had also made sure that there was no door in the wall by which ingress might be obtained from another room--other than that in which the Duchesse de Castellucchio was now sleeping. Consequently, he was at once able to decide that it was not from her room that the voices proceeded, while, at the same time, his ears told him also that they were not the voices of either the Duchess or Jacquette. Yet still he heard them. He heard the deep tones of a man subdued almost to a whisper; the softer, gentler tones of a woman, itself also subdued.