"Come, petit père, I insist," he added more peremptorily, seeing that Briot--with the hesitancy peculiar to his kind--still made no movement to obey, but stood close by scratching his scanty locks and looking puzzled and anxious.
Fortunately for him Maurice understood the temperament of these peasants of the Dauphiné, he knew that with their curious hesitancy and inherent suspiciousness it was always the easiest to make up their minds for them.
So now--since he was absolutely determined to come to grips with that abominable thief upstairs, before the night was many minutes older--he ceased to parley with Briot.
A candle stood close to his hand on the table, a bit of kindling wood lay in a heap in one corner, with the help of the one he lighted the other, then candle in hand he walked up to the door.
And Aristide Briot, with a shrug of the shoulders which implied that he there and then put away from him any responsibility for what might or might not occur after this, and without further comment, led the way upstairs.
On the upper landing at the top of the stairs Briot paused. He pointed to a door at the end of the narrow corridor, and said curtly:
"I thank you, petit père," whispered St. Genis in response. "Don't wait for me, I'll be back directly."
"He is not yet in bed," was Briot's dry comment.
A thin streak of light showed underneath the door. As St. Genis walked rapidly toward it he wondered if the door would be locked. That certainly was a contingency which had not occurred to him. His design was to surprise a wounded and helpless thief in his sleep and to force him then and there to give up the stolen money, before he had time to call for help.
But the miscreant was evidently on the watch, Briot still lingered on the top of the stairs, there were other people sleeping in the house, and St. Genis suddenly realised that his purpose would not be quite so easy of execution as he had hot-headedly supposed.
But the end in view was great, and St. Genis was not a man easily deterred from a set purpose. There was the royalist cause to aid and Crystal to be won if he were successful.
He knocked resolutely at the door, then tried the latch. The door was locked: but even as the young man hesitated for a moment wondering what he would do next, a firm step resounded on the floor on the other side of the partition and the next moment the door was opened from within, and a peremptory voice issued the usual challenge: