Rage and fear—­rage at the intrusion, fear of the intruder—­ struggled in the priest’s face.  “How do you come here, and what do you want?” he inquired hoarsely.  If looks and tones could kill, we three, trembling behind our flimsy screen, had been freed at that moment from our enemy.

“I have come in search of the young birds whose necks you were for stretching, my friend!” was Bezers’ answer.  “They have vanished.  Birds they must be, for unless they have come into this house by that window, they have flown away with wings.”

“They have not passed this way,” the priest declared stoutly, eager only to get rid of the other and I blessed him for the words!  “I have been here since I left you.”

But the Vidame was not one to accept any man’s statement.  “Thank you; I think I will see for myself,” he answered coolly.  “Madame,” he continued, speaking to Madame de Pavannes as he passed her, “permit me.”

He did not look at her, or see her emotion, or I think he must have divined our presence.  And happily the others did not suspect her of knowing more than they did.  He crossed the floor at his leisure, and sauntered to the window, watched by them with impatience.  He drew aside the curtain, and tried each of the bars, and peered through the opening both up and down, An oath and an expression of wonder escaped him.  The bars were standing, and firm and strong; and it did not occur to him that we could have passed between them.  I am afraid to say how few inches they were apart.

As he turned, he cast a casual glance at the bed—­at us; and hesitated.  He had the candle in his hand, having taken it to the window the better to examine the bars; and it obscured his sight.  He did not see us.  The three crouching forms, the strained white faces, the starting eyes, that lurked in the shadow of the curtain escaped him.  The wild beating of our hearts did not reach his ears.  And it was well for him that it was so.  If he had come up to the bed I think that we should have killed him, I know that we should have tried.  All the blood in me had gone to my head, and I saw him through a haze—­larger than life.  The exact spot near the buckle of his cloak where I would strike him, downwards and inwards, an inch above the collar-bone,—­this only I saw clearly.  I could not have missed it.  But he turned away, his face darkening, and went back to the group near the door, and never knew the risk he had run.

CHAPTER VI.

MADAME’S fright.

And we breathed again.  The agony of suspense, which Bezers’ pause had created, passed away.  But the night already seemed to us as a week of nights.  An age of experience, an aeon of adventures cut us off—­as we lay shaking behind the curtain—­from Caylus and its life.  Paris had proved itself more treacherous than we had even expected to find it.  Everything and everyone shifted, and wore