“No! no!” she answered feverishly, and she continued to crouch where she was on the stairs, bathing herself and her burning face in the darkness and coolness of the stairway.  The air entered freely through a window at her elbow, and the place was fresher, were that all, than the room she had left.  Javette began to whimper, but she paid no heed to her; a man came and went along the passage below, and she heard the outer door unbarred, and the jarring tread of three or four men who passed through it.  But all without disturbance; and afterwards the house was quiet again.  And as on this Monday evening the prime virulence of the massacre had begun to abate—­though it held after a fashion to the end of the week—­Paris without was quiet also.  The sounds which had chilled her heart at intervals during two days were no longer heard.  A feeling almost of peace, almost of comfort—­a drowsy feeling, that was three parts a reaction from excitement—­took possession of her.  In the darkness her head sank lower and lower on her knees.  And half an hour passed, while Javette whimpered, and Madame Carlat slumbered, her broad back propped against the wall.

Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw, three steps below her, a strange man whose upward way she barred.  Behind him came Carlat, and behind him Bigot, lighting both; and in the confusion of her thoughts as she rose to her feet the three, all staring at her in a common amazement, seemed a company.  The air entering through the open window beside her blew the flame of the candle this way and that, and added to the nightmare character of the scene; for by the shifting light the men seemed to laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their shadows were now high and now low on the wall.  In truth, they were as much amazed at coming on her in that place as she at their appearance; but they were awake, and she newly roused from sleep; and the advantage was with them.

“What is it?” she cried in a panic.  “What is it?”

“If Mademoiselle will return to her room?” one of the men said courteously.

“But—­what is it?” She was frightened.

“If Mademoiselle—­”

Then she turned without more and went back into the room, and the three followed, and her woman and Madame Carlat.  She stood resting one hand on the table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the candles.  Then—­

“Now, Monsieur,” she said in a hard voice, “if you will tell me your business?”

“You do not know me?” The stranger’s eyes dwelt kindly and pitifully on her.

She looked at him steadily, crushing down the fears which knocked at her heart.

“No,” she said.  “And yet I think I have seen you.”

“You saw me a week last Sunday,” the stranger answered sorrowfully.  “My name is La Tribe.  I preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the King of Navarre.  I believe that you were there.”

For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips parted.  Then she laughed, a laugh which set the teeth on edge.