If looks and tones could kill, we three, trembling behind our flimsy screen, had been freed at that moment from our enemy.
"I have come in search of the young birds whose necks you were for stretching, my friend!" was Bezers' answer.

"They have vanished.
Birds they must be, for unless they have come into this house by that window, they have flown away with wings." "They have not passed this way," the priest declared stoutly, eager only to get rid of the other and I blessed him for the words! "I have been here since I left you." But the Vidame was not one to accept any man's statement.

"Thank you; I think I will see for myself," he answered coolly.

"Madame," he continued, speaking to Madame de Pavannes as he passed her, "permit me." He did not look at her, or see her emotion, or I think he must have divined our presence.

And happily the others did not suspect her of knowing more than they did.