ntinued
ironically. 'I must have some security a great deal more substantial
than that, father.'

'What?' he asked, looking at me gloomily.

Seeing an opening, I cudgelled my brains to think of any condition
which, being fulfilled, might turn the table on him and place him in my
power. But his position was so strong, or my wits so weak, that nothing
occurred to me at the time, and I sat looking at, him, my mind gradually
passing from the possibility of escape to the actual danger in which
I stood, and which encompassed also Simon Fleix, and, in a degree,
doubtless, M. de Rambouillet. In four or five days, too, Mademoiselle de
la Vire would arrive. I wondered if I could send any warning to her;
and then, again, I doubted the wisdom of interfering with M. de Rosny's
plans, the more as Maignan, who had gone to fetch mademoiselle, was of a
kind to disregard any orders save his master's.

'Well!' said the monk, impatiently recalling me to myself, 'what
security do you want?'

'I am not quite sure at this moment,' I made answer slowly. 'I am in a
difficult position. I must have some time to consider.'

'And to rid yourself of me, if it be possible,' he said with irony. 'I
quite understand. But I warn you that you are watched; and that wherever
you go and whatever you do, eyes which are mine are upon you.'

'I, too, understand,' I said coolly.

He stood awhile uncertain, regarding me with mingled doubt and
malevolence, tortured on the one hand by fear of losing the prize if
he granted delay, on the other of failing as utterly if he exerted his
power and did not succeed in subduing my resolution. I watched him, too,
and gauging his eagerness and the value of the stake for which he was
striving by the strength of his emotions, drew small comfort from the
sight. More than once it had occurred to me, and now it occurred to me
again, to extricate myself by a blow. But a natural reluctance to strike
an unarmed man, however vile and knavish, and the belief that he had
not trusted himself in my power without taking the fullest precautions,
withheld me. When he grudgingly, and with many dark threats, proposed to
wait three days--and not an hour more--for my answer, I accepted; for I
saw no other alternative open. And on these terms, but not without
some short discussion, we parted, and I heard his stealthy footstep go
sneaking down the stairs.

CHAPTER XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE.

If I were telling more than the truth, or h