“Now be off!” he continued irascibly.  “This is no place for your sort.  Be off!” And, as they moved, “Coming!  Coming!” he cried in answer to a distant summons; and he hurried away on the errand which their appearance had interrupted.

Tignonville would have gone to work to recover the pallets, for the man had left the key in the door.  But as he went to do so the butler looked back, and the two were obliged to make a pretence of following him.  A moment, however, and he was gone; and Tignonville turned anew to regain them.  A second time fortune was adverse; a door within a pace of him opened, a woman came out.  She recoiled from the strange figure; her eyes met his.  Unluckily the light from the room behind her fell on his face, and with a shrill cry she named him.

One second and all had been lost, for the crowd of idlers at the other end of the passage had caught her cry, and were looking that way.  With presence of mind Tignonville clapped his hand on her mouth, and, huddling her by force into the room, followed her, with La Tribe at his heels.

It was a large room, in which seven or eight people, who had been at prayers when the cry startled them, were rising from their knees.  The first thing they saw was Javette on the threshold, struggling in the grasp of a wild man, ragged and begrimed; they deemed the city risen and the massacre upon them.  Carlat threw himself before his mistress, the Countess in her turn sheltered a young girl, who stood beside her and from whose face the last trace of colour had fled.  Madame Carlat and a waiting-woman ran shrieking to the window; another instant and the alarm would have gone abroad.

Tignonville’s voice stopped it.  “Don’t you know me?” he cried, “Madame! you at least!  Carlat!  Are you all mad?”

The words stayed them where they stood in an astonishment scarce less than their alarm.  The Countess tried twice to speak; the third time—­

“Have you escaped?” she muttered.

Tignonville nodded, his eyes bright with triumph.  “So far,” he said.  “But they may be on our heels at any moment!  Where can we hide?”

The Countess, her hand pressed to her side, looked at Javette.

“The door, girl!” she whispered.  “Lock it!”

“Ay, lock it!  And they can go by the back-stairs,” Madame Carlat answered, awaking suddenly to the situation.  “Through my closet!  Once in the yard they may pass out through the stables.”

“Which way?” Tignonville asked impatiently.  “Don’t stand looking at me, but—­”

“Through this door!” Madame Carlat answered, hurrying to it.

He was following when the Countess stepped forward and interposed between him and the door.

“Stay!” she cried; and there was not one who did not notice a new decision in her voice, a new dignity in her bearing.  “Stay, Monsieur, we may be going too fast.  To go out now and in that guise—­may it not be to incur greater peril than you incur here?  I feel sure that you are in no danger of your life at present.  Therefore, why run the risk—­”