’It shall not be put on again, if Madame will give her word not to cry out.’

‘It is of no use at present,’ I gasped out, and they let me alone.  I thought I knew that threats and entreaties could avail me little in the existing circumstances, and I thought it wiser to rally my forces for the struggle that no doubt was impending; so I sat as still as I could, and was rewarded by finding my hands unbound, when I tried to raise one to my face, and again the voice said: 

’Believe us, Madame, you are with friends who would not hurt you for the universe.’

I made no answer.  Perhaps it was in the same mood in which, when I was a child at home and was in a bad temper, I might be whipped and shut up in a dark room, but nothing would make me speak.  Only now I said my prayers, and I am sure I never did so in those old days.  We went on and on, and I think I must have dozed at last, for I actually thought myself wearied out with kicking, scratching, and screaming on the floor of the lumber-room at Walwyn, and that I heard the dear grandmother’s voice saying: 

’Eh! quoi! she is asleep; the sullen had stopped, and with the words, ‘Pardon me, Madame,’ I was lifted out, and set upon my feet; but my two hands were taken, and I was led along what seemed to be endless passages, until at length my hands were released, and the same voice said: 

’Madame will be glad of a few moments to arrange her dress.  She will find the bandage over her eyes easy to remove.’

Before, however, I could pull it away, my enemy had shut the door from the outside, and I heard the key turn in it.  I looked about me; I was in a narrow paved chamber, with one small window very high up, through which the sunbeams came, chequered by a tall tree, so high that I knew it was late in the day, and that we must have driven far.  There was the frame of a narrow bedstead in one corner, a straw chair, a crucifix, and an empty cell in a deserted convent; but there was a stone table projecting from the wall, on which had been placed a few toilette necessaries, and a pitcher of water stood on the floor.

I was glad to drink a long draught, and then, as I saw there was no exit, I could not but make myself more fit to be seen, for my hair had been pulled down and hung on my shoulders, and my face—­ah! it had never looked anything like that, save on the one day when Eustace and I had the great battle, and our grand-mother punished us both by bread and water for a week.

After I had made myself look a little more like a respectable widow, I knelt down before the crucifix to implore that I might be defended, and not be wanting to my son or myself.  I had scarcely done so, however, when the door was opened, and as I rose to my feet I beheld my brother-in-law, d’Aubepine.

‘Armand, brother,’ I cried joyfully, ’are you come to my rescue?  Did you meet my sister?’