"You, sir, are the wounded officer on parole?" I said in French. The officer bowed.
"And you, madame?" I asked of the old lady. The sight of my uniform seemed to have paralysed her with terror. "Come, come, madame," I exclaimed impatiently; "it is a simple question."
"Monsieur, you frighten her," said the young lady. "It is my aunt, the Baroness Granville."
"You tell me nothing of yourself," I said to her, and she looked at me in surprise.
"Since you have come with an escort to this house I imagined you must know to whom it belonged. I am Sophie de Villetaneuse."
"Exactly," I replied, as though I had known all along, and had merely asked the question to see whether she would speak the truth. "Now, mademoiselle, will you please explain to me how it is that while your neighbours have fled you remain at your château?"
"It is quite simple," she answered. "My mother is bed-ridden. She could not be moved. She could not be left alone."
"You will pardon me," said I, "if I test that statement."
The wounded officer raised himself upon his elbow as though to protest, but Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse put out a hand and checked him. She showed me a face flushed with anger, but she spoke quite quietly.
"I will myself take you to my mother's room."
I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little preparations in the way of burning awkward papers which they may think desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught."
Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated.
"There are no awkward papers!" she exclaimed.
"That statement, too, I shall put to the test."
I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye upon the room, I called the corporal.
"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in the room with us."
She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the room.
"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?"
"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?"
The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie.
He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his lips and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the relationship in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another. Mademoiselle Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility that I might have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no word, she was still more explicit now. With the officer that caress was plainly no more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the look of a habit, it was so neatly given, and he gave it without carelessness, it is true, but without warmth. But she received it very differently. He did not see, because his head was bent above her hand, but I did.