Pelletan, his face livid, clutching blindly at the wall for support,
stumbled forth into the hall, along the corridor, down the stair, until
at last he found Tellier, his face purple, rearranging his cravat before
a mirror in the hotel office.
"Iss she not lifing?" he asked, huskily.
"Living!" echoed Tellier, whirling upon him fiercely. "No, pig-head, she
has been dead these three years! But you are no more a pig-head than
those others. Oh, they shall answer, they shall repay, they shall atone!
I will have my revenge--"
But Pelletan did not stop to listen. He groped his way across the room,
his eyes shining, his lips trembling, repeating over and over a single
word--
"Paris! Paris! Paris!"
Behind the desk he stumbled, through the little door, and dropped to his
knees before Saint Genevieve, the protector of the city which he loved.
"You haf done eet!" he murmured, looking up at her with limpid eyes.
"You haf seen how I suffered, unt you haf taken pity. Gott sie dank!
Gott sie dank!"
CHAPTER XXI
Pardon
As Tellier's voice died away along the hall, a silence fell upon the
room which he had left--a silence from which the duchess was the first
to rouse herself.
"Come, Fritz," she said, "we must go. We have work to do," and she held
out her hand to him.
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