It was equally clear that we could not go forward if the inmates should object.  On that narrow perch even Marie was helpless.  The bars of the window were close together.  A woman, a child, could disengage our hands, and then—­I turned sick again.  I thought of the cruel stones.  I glued my face to the bars, and pushing aside a corner of the curtain, looked in.

There was only one person in the room—­a woman, who was moving about fully dressed, late as it was.  The room was a mere attic, the counterpart of that we had left.  A box-bed with a canopy roughly nailed over it stood in a corner.  A couple of chairs were by the hearth, and all seemed to speak of poverty and bareness.  Yet the woman whom we saw was richly dressed, though her silks and velvets were disordered.  I saw a jewel gleam in her hair, and others on her hands.  When she turned her face towards us—­a wild, beautiful face, perplexed and tear-stained—­I knew her instantly for a gentlewoman, and when she walked hastily to the door, and laid her hand upon it, and seemed to listen—­ when she shook the latch and dropped her hands in despair and went back to the hearth, I made another discovery I knew at once, seeing her there, that we were likely but to change one prison for another.  Was every house in Paris then a dungeon?  And did each roof cover its tragedy?

“Madame!” I said, speaking softly, to attract her attention.  “Madame!”

She started violently, not knowing whence the sound came, and looked round, at the door first.  Then she moved towards the window, and with an affrighted gesture drew the curtain rapidly aside.

Our eyes met.  What if she screamed and aroused the house?  What, indeed?  “Madame,” I said again, speaking hurriedly, and striving to reassure her by the softness of my voice, “we implore your help!  Unless you assist us we are lost.”

“You!  Who are you?” she cried, glaring at us wildly, her hand to her head.  And then she murmured to herself, “Mon Dieu! what will become of me?”

“We have been imprisoned in the house opposite,” I hastened to explain, disjointedly I am afraid.  “And we have escaped.  We cannot get back if we would.  Unless you let us enter your room and give us shelter—­”

“We shall be dashed to pieces on the pavement,” supplied Marie, with perfect calmness—­nay, with apparent enjoyment.

“Let you in here?” she answered, starting back in new terror; “it is impossible.”

She reminded me of our cousin, being, like her pale and dark-haired.  She wore her hair in a coronet, disordered now.  But though she was still beautiful, she was older than Kit, and lacked her pliant grace.  I saw all this, and judging her nature, I spoke out of my despair.  “Madame,” I said piteously, “we are only boys.  Croisette!  Come up!” Squeezing myself still more tightly into my corner of the ledge, I made room for him between us.  “See, Madame,” I cried, craftily, “will you not have pity on three boys?”