"
"No. I was thinking of the fate that you are preparing for us."
"Oh! A truce to disagreeable prophecies, please! Besides, it's too
late to draw back, or to even think of retreat. The Rubicon is
passed."
"Alas! that is the cause of my anxiety. If it hadn't been for my
wretched past, which you have threatened me with like a dagger, I
should long ago have left you to incur this danger alone. You
were useful to me in times past, I admit. You presented me to the
Baroness Trigault, to whose patronage I owe my present means, but
I am paying too dearly for your services in allowing myself to be
made the instrument of your dangerous schemes. Who aided you in
defrauding Kami-Bey? Who bet for you against your own horse
Domingo? Who risked his life in slipping those cards in the pack
which Pascal Ferailleur held? It was Coralth, always Coralth."
A gesture of anger escaped the marquis, but resolving to restrain
himself, he made no rejoinder. It was not until after he had
walked five or six times round the smoking-room and grown more
calm that he returned to the viscount's side. "Really, I don't
recognize you," he began. "Is it really you who have turned
coward? And at what a moment, pray? Why, on the very eve of
success."
"I wish I could believe you."
"Facts shall convince you. This morning I might have doubted, but
now, thanks to that vain idiot who goes by the name of Wilkie, I
am sure, perfectly, mathematically sure of success.
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