I am in it
now. I await you there, for there you will surely, necessarily,
inevitably come. Ah, ha! you will not then think my downfall so
very strange. Let me pass! make way! if you please."
He advanced with his head haughtily erect, and would actually have
made his escape if a frightened servant had not at that moment
appeared crying: "Monsieur--Monsieur le Baron! a commissary of
police is downstairs. He is coming up. He has a warrant!"
The marquis's frenzied assurance deserted him. He turned even
paler than he already was if that were possible, and reeled like
an ox but partially stunned by the butcher's hammer. Suddenly a
desperate resolution could be read in his eyes, the resolution of
the condemned criminal, who, knowing that he cannot escape the
scaffold, ascends it with a firm step.
He hastily approached Baron Trigault, and asked in a husky voice:
"Will you allow me to be arrested in your house, baron? me--a
Valorsay!"
It might have been supposed that the baron had expected this
reproach, for without a word he led the marquis and M. de Coralth
to a little room at the end of the hall, pushed them inside, and
closed the door again.
It was time he did so, for the commissary of police was already
upon the threshold. "Which of you gentlemen is the Marquis de
Valorsay?" he asked. "Which of you is Paul Violaine, alias the
Viscount de----"
The sharp report of firearms suddenly interrupted him.
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