Coquenil hesitated, and then with a frown of perplexity and exasperation he snapped out:  “I—­I haven’t had time to think yet.”

CHAPTER XI

THE TOWERS OF NOTRE-DAME

It was a distressed and sleepless night that Alice passed after the torturing scene of her lover’s arrest.  She would almost have preferred her haunting dreams to this pitiful reality.  What had Lloyd done?  Why had this woman come for him?  And what would happen now?  Again and again, as weariness brought slumber, the sickening fact stirred her to wakefulness—­they had taken Kittredge away to prison charged with an abominable crime.  And she loved him, she loved him now more than ever, she was absolutely his, as she never would have been if this trouble had not come.  Ah, there was her only ray of comfort that just at the last she had made him happy.  She would never forget his look of gratitude as she cried out her love and her trust in his innocence and—­yes, she had kissed him, her Lloyd, before those rough men; she had kissed him, and even in the darkness of her chamber her cheeks flamed at the thought.

Soon after five she rose and dressed.  This was Sunday, her busiest day, she must be in Notre-Dame for the early masses.  There was a worn place in a chasuble that needed some touches of her needle; Father Anselm had asked her to see to it.  And this duty done, there was the special Sunday sale of candles and rosaries and little red guidebooks of the church to keep her busy.

Alice was in the midst of all this when, shortly before ten, Mother Bonneton approached, cringing at the side of a visitor, a lady of striking beauty whose dress and general air proclaimed a lavish purse.  In a first glance Alice noticed her exquisite supple figure and her full red lips.  Also a delicate fragrance of violets.

“This lady wants you to show her the towers,” explained the old crone with a cunning wink at the girl.  “I tell her it’s hard for you to leave your candles, especially now when people are coming in for high mass, but I can take your place, and,” with a servile smile, “madame is generous.”

“Certainly,” agreed the lady, “whatever you like, five francs, ten francs.”

“Five francs is quite enough,” replied Alice, to Mother Bonneton’s great disgust.  “I love the towers on a day like this.”

So they started up the winding stone stairs of the Northern tower, the lady going first with lithe, nervous steps, although Alice counseled her not to hurry.

“It’s a long way to the top,” cautioned the girl, “three hundred and seventy steps.”

But the lady pressed on as if she had some serious purpose before her, round and round past an endless ascending surface of gloomy gray stone, scarred everywhere with names and initials of foolish sightseers, past narrow slips of fortress windows through the massive walls, round and round in narrowing circles until finally, with sighs of relief, they came out into the first gallery and stood looking down on Paris laughing under the yellow sun.