e
all in his twitching, restless eyes. He expected an interruption, and
he was talking, talking, talking, in order to gain time for it. I was
as sure of it as if he had whispered his secret in my ear, and down in
my numb, cold heart a warm little spring of hope began to bubble and
run.

But Toussac had chafed at all this word-fencing, and now with an oath he
broke in upon our dialogue.

'I have had enough of this!' he cried. 'It is not for child's play of
this sort that I risked my head in coming over here. Have we nothing
better to talk about than this fellow? Do you suppose I came from
London to listen to your fine phrases? Have done with it, I say, and
get to business.'

'Very good,' said my champion. 'There's an excellent little cupboard
here which makes as fine a prison as one could wish for. Let us put him
in here, and pass on to business. We can deal with him when we have
finished.'

'And have him overhear all that we say,' said Lesage.

'I don't know what the devil has come over you,' cried Toussac, turning
suspicious eyes upon my protector. 'I never knew you squeamish before,
and certainly you were not backward in the affair of the man from Bow
Street. This fellow has our secret, and he must either die, or we shall
see him at our trial. What is the sense of arranging a plot, and then
at the last moment turning a man loose who will ruin us all? Let us
snap his neck and have done with it.'

The great hairy hands were stretched towards me again, but Lesage had
sprung suddenly to his feet. His face had turned very white, and he
stood listening with his forefinger up and his head slanted. It was a
long, thin, delicate hand, and it was quivering like a leaf in the wind.

'I heard something,' he whispered.

'And I,' said the older man.

'What was it?'

'Silence. Listen!'

For a minute or more we all stayed with straining ears while the wind
still whimpered in the chimney or rattled the crazy window.

'It was nothing,' said Lesage at last, with a nervous laugh.
'The storm makes curious sounds sometimes.'

'I heard nothing,' said Toussac.

'Hush!' cried the other. 'There it is again!'

A clear rising cry floated high above the wailing of the storm; a wild,
musical cry, beginning on a low note, and thrilling swiftly up to a
keen, sharp-edged howl.

'A hound!'

'They are following us!'

Lesage dashed to the fireplace, and I saw him thrust his papers into the
blaze and grind them