"Dear God, it is she!" murmured a voice. "Open this door at once!"
The pencil beam grew until it became the bright light of a lantern carried by a jailer. It filled the cell, banishing the shadows, and only then roused the girl from her torpor. She sat up blinking just as a small man in a black soutane, with a halo of white hair, darted into the cell.
At the sight of that black robe, Marianne uttered a gasp of terror, for to a prisoner the arrival of a priest could scarcely be held a good augury. But it was only for a moment. A second later the newcomer was hurrying across to her with outstretched arms.
"Marianne! My little one! What are you doing here?"
She gave a cry of recognition, feeling as if the heavens had opened for her.
"Godfather! You—?"
But the shock of joy breaking in on her wretchedness was too much for her. Her head swam and she had to cling to the old man, who was hugging her in his arms, laughing and crying at once.
"Godfather! It can't be true… I must be dreaming…" She was stammering incoherently, still unable to believe that he was real.
By this time Cardinal de Chazay had been able to appreciate his goddaughter's condition, her torn dress and pale face, with the imprint of fear still in her eyes, and the angry words burst out of him.
"What have these savages been doing to you?" He rounded on the jailer and continued his tirade in Russian. The man had been standing by watching in blank amazement while a prince of the Roman Church cradled a common thief in his arms as tenderly as a mother. Now he vanished in response to an authoritative command and Gauthier de Chazay turned his attention to calming his goddaughter's sobs. Her shattered nerves had given way and she was weeping like a fountain into his shoulder, gasping out apologies.
"I was so frightened, Godfather! I—I thought they would do away with me w-without even a hearing…"
"And not without reason. I shall never be sufficiently grateful for the providential chance that brought me to Odessa just at this time! When Richelieu told me a female traveler who arrived at Ducroux's yesterday had been arrested for theft and was claiming on the strength of some slight resemblance to be your father's daughter, I felt I had to make sure and I hurried here at once. I'd no idea what could have brought you to this place, but I knew of only one person who looked like your father, and that was you, yourself. Although the business of the theft still worried me—"
"I stole nothing, I swear to you! That woman—"
"I know, my child, I know. Or rather, I guessed as much. You see, I know the woman of old. But come, we must not remain here. The governor came with me and is waiting for us in the commandant's office."
The jailer returned bearing an army greatcoat and a steaming glass. The coat he handed nervously to the priest, the glass he set down by Marianne.
"Drink it," the cardinal told her. "It will do you good."
It was a glass of milkless tea, strong and very sweet, and it filled the void in her empty stomach and, with its warmth, restored some life to her. While she drank the priest put the vast overcoat around her shoulders, hiding her tattered dress and bruised flesh. Then he helped her to her feet again.
"Can you walk? Would you like someone to carry you?"
"No, no, I can manage very well. The brute beat me horribly but he didn't kill me. But I should like someone to go and rescue my friend Jolival, Godfather. He was arrested not long after me, I heard them bring him here."
"Don't worry. It shall be attended to. He'll join us upstairs."
In point of fact Marianne was still far from steady on her feet, but the thought of seeing Richelieu so soon gave her wings. So much the better if it meant another battle to be fought. She felt strong enough to fight the whole world now and win. God had not deserted her. He had sent her one of His most distinguished representatives, and in the nick of time.
She had been too long familiar with the onetime Abbé de Chazay's mysterious comings and goings to feel much real surprise at finding him here, at the gateway to Russia and the east, dressed as a simple country priest. But a gasp of pure amazement was torn from her as she came face to face with the governor of whom she had been making such an ogre.
Still dressed in the same shabby boots and ill-fitting coat and still armed with the inevitable pipe, the man she had known as Septimanie was pacing irritably up and down the bare room which the commandant of the castle dignified by the title of his "office," on account of the presence in it of a table bearing at that moment three sheets of paper and an inkwell. He turned at the sound of the door opening and stood with a frown between his eyes and head lowered like a bull about to charge while the cardinal and the prisoner came in. He was evidently in an exceedingly bad temper and he spoke without preamble.
"So it was your goddaughter, Your Eminence. There can be no doubt of that?"
"None at all, my friend. None at all. This is Marianne d'Asselnat de Villeneuve, the daughter of my unhappy cousin, Pierre-Armand, and the Lady Anne Selton."
"If that is so, I fail to understand how the sole descendant of such a man could so far have forgotten herself as to become a common thief."
"I am not a thief," Marianne protested furiously. "That woman who accused me is the wickedest and most deceitful creature, and the most outrageous liar I have ever met. Only send for her, Your Grace, and we shall see then which of us is in the right."
"That is precisely what I mean to do. The Comtesse de Gachet enjoys His Imperial Majesty's especial protection and I owe her my respectful consideration on that account. The same can hardly be said of you, Mademoiselle. You have caused nothing but trouble ever since your arrival here. For all your name and your beauty, which I confess is striking, you seem to me the sort of young person who—"
"If you will allow me, my dear Duke," the cardinal cut in sharply, "I had not finished my introduction. The lady you see before you is no mere young person. Nor should you address her as Mademoiselle. Her full title, since her marriage, is Her Serene Highness, Princess Corrado Sant'Anna. Moreover I believe she has as much right to your respectful consideration as this Madame de Gachet, of whom I may perhaps know more than you."
Inwardly Marianne commended herself to heaven, cursing the family pride which had led the cardinal to impress his friend with this blunt revelation of her real name. Richelieu's stern eyes had widened and one eyebrow had lifted ominously. His rather high voice went up a full three tones to a harsh squeak.
"Princess Sant'Anna, eh? I've heard that name. I can't remember just what it was I was told about her, but I seem to think it was nothing very good. One thing at least is certain. She entered Odessa under false pretenses, taking good care to conceal her real rank and traveling simply under her maiden name. There must have been a reason for that—"
Gauthier de Chazay, Cardinal San Lorenzo, was not a patient man. He had listened with clearly growing irritation to this speech of the governor's and now he put an end to it by banging his fist loudly on the table.
"We can consider her reasons later, if you please, my son! Are you quite sure that your rather too obvious ill humor is not due to the fact that you owe the princess an apology and that it galls you to admit that Madame de Gachet is not the saint you had imagined?"
The duke moistened his lips and hunched his shoulders, possibly to hide the red that crept into his cheeks. He muttered something half-inaudibly about the difficulties attendant on remaining a faithful son of the Church when her princes were so unpleasantly meddlesome.
"Well?" the little cardinal insisted. "We are waiting."