“No! no!” cried Croisette, stoutly.  He would not hear of it.  He would not have it at any price.  “No, we will not give up hope!  We will go shoulder to shoulder and find him.  Louis is as brave as a lion and as quick as a weasel.  We will find him in time yet.  We will go when—­I mean as soon as—­”

He faltered, and paused.  His sudden silence as he looked round the empty forecourt in which we stood was eloquent.  The cold light, faint and uncertain yet, was stealing into the court, disclosing a row of stables on either side, and a tiny porter’s hutch by the gates, and fronting us a noble house of four storys, tall, grey, grim-looking.

I assented; gloomily however.  “Yes,” I said, “we will go when—­”

And I too stopped.  The same thought was in my mind.  How could we leave these people?  How could we leave madame in her danger and distress?  How could we return her kindness by desertion?  We could not.  No, not for Kit’s sake.  Because after all Louis, our Louis, was a man, and must take his chance.  He must take his chance.  But I groaned.

So that was settled.  I had already explained our plan to Croisette:  and now as we waited he began to tell me a story, a long, confused story about Madame d’O.  I thought he was talking for the sake of talking—­to keep up our spirits—­and I did not attend much to him; so that he had not reached the gist of it, or at least I had not grasped it, when a noise without stayed his tongue.  It was the tramp of footsteps, apparently of a large party in the street.  It forced him to break off, and promptly drove us all to our posts.

But before we separated a slight figure, hardly noticeable in that dim, uncertain light, passed me quickly, laying for an instant a soft hand in mine as I stood waiting by the gates.  I have said I scarcely saw the figure, though I did see the kind timid eyes, and the pale cheeks under the hood; but I bent over the hand and kissed it, and felt, truth to tell, no more regret nor doubt where our duty lay.  But stood, waiting patiently.

CHAPTER IX.

The head of Erasmus.

Waiting, and waiting alone!  The gates were almost down now.  The gang of ruffians without, reinforced each moment by volunteers eager for plunder, rained blows unceasingly on hinge and socket; and still hotter and faster through a dozen rifts in the timbers came the fire of their threats and curses.  Many grew tired, but others replaced them.  Tools broke, but they brought more and worked with savage energy.  They had shown at first a measure of prudence; looking to be fired on, and to be resisted by men, surprised, indeed, but desperate; and the bolder of them only had advanced.  But now they pressed round unchecked, meeting no resistance.  They would scarcely stand back to let the sledges have swing; but hallooed and ran in on the creaking beams and beat them with their fists, whenever the gates swayed under a blow.