not to incur the danger of the theft alone; the stake was great, and it
was not in Montreuil's nature to shrink from peril, when once it became
necessary to confront it. "Be it so," he said, at last, "though the
scheme is full of difficulty and of danger: be it so. We have not a day
to lose. To-morrow the Count will place the document in some place of
greater safety, and unknown to us: the deed shall be done to-night.
Procure the key of the escritoire; admit me this night; I will steal
disguised into the chamber; I will commit the act from which you, who
alone could commit it with safety, shrink. Instruct me exactly as to the
place where the articles you speak of are placed. I will abstract
them also. See that if the Count wake, he has no weapon at hand.
Wound yourself, as you say, in some place not dangerous to life, and
to-morrow, or within an hour after my escape, tell what tale you will.
I will go, meanwhile, at once to Oswald; I will either bribe his
silence--ay, and his immediate absence from England--or he shall die. A
death that secures our own self-preservation is excusable in the reading
of all law, divine or human." I heard, but they deemed me insensible:
they had already begun to grow unheeding of my presence. Montreuil saw
me, and his countenance grew soft. "I know all," I said, as I caught
his eye which looked on me in pity, "I know all: they are married.
Enough!--with my hope ceases my love: care not for me."

Montreuil embraced and spoke to me in kindness and in praise. He assured
me that you had kept your wedding so close a secret that he knew it
not, nor did even Desmarais, till the evening before,--till after he
had proposed that I should visit Isora that very day. I know not, I care
not, whether he was sincere in this. In whatever way one line in the
dread scroll of his conduct be read, the scroll was written in guile,
and in blood was it sealed. I appeared not to notice Montreuil or his
accomplice any more. The latter left the house first. Montreuil stole
forth, as he thought, unobserved; he was masked, and in complete
disguise. I, too, went forth. I hastened to a shop where such things
were procured; I purchased a mask and cloak similar to the priest's.
I had heard Montreuil agree with Desmarais that the door of the house
should be left ajar, in order to give greater facility to the escape of
the former; I repaired to the house in time to see Montreuil enter it.
A strange, sharp sort of cunning, wh