“Yes; and I know not what noble lady mademoiselle can be, save—­will it please her to come into the house?”

He led the way with his torch, not suffering himself to look at her again.  He had his foot on the staircase, when she called to him, as if she had been accustomed to addressing him all her life: 

“Vigo, this will do.  I will speak to you here.”

“As mademoiselle wishes.  I thought the salon fitter.  My cabinet here will be quieter than the hall, mademoiselle.”

He opened the door, and she entered.  He pushed me in next, giving me the torch and saying: 

“Ask mademoiselle, Felix, whether she wants me.”  He amazed me—­he who always ordered.

“I want you, Vigo,” mademoiselle answered him herself.  “I want you to send two men with me to St. Denis.”

“To-morrow?”

“No; to-night.”

“But mademoiselle cannot go to St. Denis.”

“I can, and I must.”

“They will not let a horse-party through the gate at night,” Vigo began.

“We will go on foot.”

“Mademoiselle,” Vigo answered, as if she had proposed flying to the moon, “you cannot walk to St. Denis.”

“I must!” she cried.

I had put the flambeau in a socket on the wall.  Now that the light shone on her steadily, I saw for the first time, though I might have known it from her presence here, how rent with emotion she was, white to the lips, with gleaming eyes and stormy breast.  She had spoken low and quietly, but it was a main-force composure, liable to snap like glass.  I thought her on the very verge of passionate tears.  Vigo looked at her, puzzled, troubled, pitying, as on some beautiful, mad creature.  She cried out on him suddenly, her rich voice going up a key: 

“You need not say ‘cannot’ to me, Vigo!  You know not how I came here.  I was locked in my chamber.  I changed clothes with my Norman maid.  There was a sentry at each end of the street.  I slid down a rope of my bedclothes; it was dark—­they did not see me.  I knocked at Ferou’s door—­thank the saints, it opened to me quickly!  I told M. Ferou—­God forgive me!—­I had business for the duke at the other end of the tunnel.  He took me through, and I came here.”

“But, mademoiselle, the bats!” I cried.

“Yes, the bats,” she returned, with a little smile.  “And my hands on the ropes!” She turned them over; the skin was torn cruelly from her delicate palms and the inside of her fingers.  Little threads of blood marked the scores.  “Then I came here,” she repeated.  “In all my life I have never been in the streets alone—­not even for one step at noonday.  Now will you tell me, M. Vigo, that I cannot go to St. Denis?”

“Mademoiselle, it is yours to say what you can do.”

As for me, I dropped on my knees and laid my lips to her fingers, softly, for fear even their pressure might hurt her tenderness.

“Mademoiselle!” I cried in pure delight.  “Mademoiselle, that you are here!”