What was as much to the point, the officer had no doubt of Mayenne’s good faith.  He went with his paper into an inner room, where we caught sight, through the door, of big books with a clerk or two behind them, and in a moment appeared again with a key.

“Since the young gentleman’s a count, I’ll do turnkey’s office myself,” he said, his grim old battlement of a face smiling.

This was our day; from Mayenne down, everybody went out of his way to pleasure us.  I was suddenly emboldened by his manner.

“Monsieur, perhaps it is preposterous to ask, but might I go with you?”

He looked at me a moment, surprised.

“Well, after all, why not?  You too, Sir Musketeer, an you like.”

So the three of us, he and d’Auvray and I, went to rescue the Comte de Mar.

We passed through corridor after corridor, row after row of heavy-barred doors.  The deeper we penetrated the mighty pile, the fonder I grew of my friend Mayenne, by whose complaisance none of these doors would shut on me.  We climbed at last a steep turret stair winding about a huge fir trunk, lighted by slits of windows in the four-foot wall, and at the top turned down a dark passage to a door at the end, the bolts of which, invisible to me in the gloom, the veteran drew back with familiar hand.

The cell was small, with one high window through which I could see naught but the sky.  For all furniture it contained a pallet, a stool, a bench that might serve as table.  M. Etienne stood at the window, his arm crooked around the iron bars, gazing out over the roofs of Paris.

He wheeled about at the door’s creaking.

“I go to trial, monsieur?” he asked quickly, not seeing me behind the keeper.

“No, M. le Comte.  The charge is cancelled.  I come to set you free.”

I dashed in past the officer, snatching my lord’s hand to kiss.

“It’s true, monsieur!  You’re free!  It’s all settled with Mayenne.  Monsieur’s seen him; he sets you free.  He said, ’In recognizance of Wednesday night.’”

Incredulous joy flashed over his face, to give way to belief without joy.

“Now I know she’s married.”

“Nothing of the sort!” I fairly shouted at him, dancing up and down in my eagerness.  “She’s to marry M. le Comte.  She’s at St. Denis with Monsieur.  She’s to marry you.  It’s all arranged.  Mayenne consents—­the king—­everybody.  It’s all settled.  She marries you.”

Preposterous as it seemed, he could not discredit my fervour.  He followed us out of the cell and through the fortress in a radiant daze.  He half believed himself dreaming, I think, and feared to speak lest his happiness should melt.  I fancied even that he walked lightly and gingerly, as if the slightest unwary movement might break the spell.  Not till we were actually in the open door of the court, face to face with freedom, did he rouse himself to acknowledge the thing real.  With a joyous laugh, he turned to the keeper: