A knock interrupted. It was the _concierge_, who handed him a card. Without looking at it, Lecour replied--
The words upon the card might well have produced his answer. When the door was shut he glanced at it, started, and held it in his hands, fascinated by apprehension. It read--
In the name he recognised that of his father's patron.
"It is clear I must leave this place," thought he; and then it flashed upon him that de Lotbinière must have intended to call on _the other Répentigny_.
"Yes, he would lodge here. Without doubt the reason this is de Bailleul's resort is that it is a meeting-place for Canadians."
Putting on his hat and cloak he went down to the entrance, and in passing out said as if casually to the _concierge_--
"Has the Marquis de Répentigny entered yet?"
Germain started out into the night, not knowing where to go. It was about nine o'clock and dark overhead, but the narrow towering streets of old Paris possessed a rude system of lighting and the life at least of a great city, so that he felt less lonely than in his rooms, and walked on and on for several hours.
Lorgnette in hand, Cyrène was sitting in the music chamber of the Hôtel de Noailles, scanning the bars of a sheet of music sent her by her suitor. Near by was the harpsichord on which she was about to try it, when it seemed to her that a screen beside her trembled. Glancing for an instant at it she was reassured. Almost immediately, however, it again shook and fixed her attention, but after watching it for a few moments and seeing no repetition, she once more turned away, satisfied that she had been mistaken. Then suddenly she became aware that a man was standing beside her, sprang to her feet and would have screamed had his attitude not been so deferential.
He was dressed entirely in black, of the best materials and Paris cut; his age was over fifty, and his features well made, but pinched and of an ashen tint. His expression of strange woe roused her sympathy and quieted her fears.
"Are you la Montmorency," he asked, "the _fiancée_ of the Guardsman?"
"This is a strange question," she exclaimed. "How does it concern you, sir?"
"Deeply, deeply. These are matters of life and death."
"Do not fear, your lover is safe. I could have killed him, but did not."