“There is a sound in your voice. Oh, this savage unyielding wall! I will kiss it a foot above the trap. Will you do the same on the other side?” “Monsieur forgets himself, I think.” “He is light-headed with joy. But he never forgets Mademoiselle de Lâge--not though she punished him grievously for an indifferent offence in the forests of Chalus.” “Jean-Louis, listen well to this: I was abducted.” “My God! by whom?” “By a vile citizen Representative journeying to Paris.” “By a----” “I had emerged from the trees after you left me, and was sitting very passionate by the road, when he passed with his escort and discovered me.” I kneeled voiceless as if I were stunned. “What would you!” said Carinne. “There was no Thibaut at hand to throw him to the pigs. He forced me to go with him, and----” I vented a groan that quite rumbled in the gutter; and at that her voice came through the hole a little changed-- “Monsieur has a delicate faith in what he professes to love.” I beat my hands on the wall. I cried upon Heaven in my agony to let me reach through this inexorable veil of stone. “You talked once of the wicked licence of the times. How could I know, oh, _ma mie_! And now all my heart is melting with love and rapture.” “But I had a knife, Jean-Louis. Well, but he was courteous to me; and at that I told him who I was--no jill-flirt, but an unhappy waif of fortune. Now, _mon Dieu_!--it turned out that this was the very man that had come _en mission_ to Pierrettes.” “Lacombe?” “No--a creature of the name of Crépin----” I uttered a cry. “Crépin! It was he that carried thee away?” “Truly; and who has, for my obduracy, consigned me to prison. Ever since, little Thibaut, ever since--now at Les Carmes; now in the Rue de Sèvres; at last, no later than yesterday, to this ‘extraordinary question’ of La Force.” “Now thou art a sweet-souled Carinne! Send me something of thine through the evil passage that I may mumble it with my lips. Carinne, listen,”--and I told her the story of my connection with the villain. “I would wring his neck if they would spare mine,” I said. “But, alas! I fear I am doomed, Carinne.” She had from me all the details in brief of my captivity. _Mon Dieu!_ but it was ecstasy this dessert to my long feast of neglect. At the end she was silent a space; then she said very low-- “He communicates with me; but I never answer. Now I will do so, and perhaps thou shalt not die.” “Carinne.” “Hush, thou small citizen! The time is up; we must talk no longer.” I breathed all my heart out in a sigh of farewell. I thought she had already gone, when suddenly she spoke again-- “Jean-Louis, Jean-Louis, do you hear?” “Yes.” “I would have thee just the height for thine eyes to look into mine.” “Carinne? And what should they read there?” Again there was a pause, again I thought she had gone; and then once more her voice came to me-- “Little Thibaut, I _did_ kiss the wall a foot above the trap.” * * * * * * *