To do that, I must not delay."
"The streets are so full," replied Sebastian, glancing out of the
window, "that you will pass through them unnoticed. I see beneath
the trees, a neighbour, Koch the locksmith, who is perhaps waiting
to give me news. While you are saying farewell, I will go out and
speak to him. What he has to tell may interest you and your
comrades at sea--may help your escape from the city this morning."
He took his hat as he spoke and went to the door. Mathilde,
thirsting for the news that seemed to hum in the streets like the
sound of bees, rose and followed him. Desiree and D'Arragon were
left alone. She had gone to the window, and, turning there, she
looked back at him over her shoulder, where he stood by the door
watching her.
"So, you see," she said, "there is no other Sebastian."
D'Arragon made no reply. She came nearer to him, her blue eyes
sombre with contempt for the man she had married. Suddenly she
pointed to the chair which D'Arragon had just vacated.
"That is where he sat. He has eaten my father's salt a hundred
times," she said, with a short laugh. For whithersoever
civilization may take us, we must still go back to certain primaeval
laws of justice between man and man.
"You judge too hastily," said D'Arragon; but she interrupted him
with a gesture of warning.
"I have not judged hastily," she said. "You do not understand. You
think I judge from that letter.
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