Thus Mlle. de Varion became my guest in that wilderness fastness. I gave her the two chambers in best preservation, one of them being immediately over the chief entrance and overlooking the courtyard. My own abode was in the northern turret, looking down the steep wooded declivity that fell to the road from Clochonne to Narjec. Hugo was to sleep outside her door. My own men made their beds in the great hall and in certain sheltered portions of the wings and outbuildings. They usually ate in this hall, receiving their food on platters from the cook (happily the kitchen had remained fit for use), and bearing it thither. It was arranged that Hugo should carry the meals of mademoiselle and Jeannotte to mademoiselle's apartments. It was more after our arrival than during our ride to Maury that mademoiselle showed the fatigue of which she had spoken. It was evident that she had reached a resting-place none too soon. Weakness was manifest in all her movements as well as in the pallor of her cheeks. Yet, though she languished thus, she did not keep all the time to her chamber. Each morning she came down to walk about the courtyard, saying that the air and sunshine--as much as found its way through the overspreading branches of the trees--strengthened her. There was in one corner of the yard an old stone bench, which, in good weather, was for a great part of the afternoon half in sun and half in shade. Here she would sit by the hour, changing her position as sunlight or shade became preferable for the moment. Morning or afternoon, I was never far from her. For I had had to defer from day to day the first steps towards the projected deliverance of M. de Varion. On our arrival I had found that some of the men on whose aid I would most depend were away on a foraging expedition. Each hour I looked for their return, but in vain. Their absence had now become so prolonged as to be a cause of alarm. My anxiety about them, and my concern over other matters, took up so much of my mind that little was left in which to devise a plan for the rescue of the prisoner, and I would not make the first move until the whole design should be complete. As days passed, and mademoiselle's missing boy, Pierre, did not come, I ceased to hope that we should ever see him again. Had he found his way to the inn where he had left us, Marianne or Godeau would have brought him to Maury immediately. It was useless to speculate as to what might have become of him. He might have perished in the forest, or found his way to Clochonne, or fallen in with De Berquin and suffered for having been of our party. When his disappearance was mentioned, Jeannotte would look at mademoiselle, and mademoiselle would say: "Poor boy! I pray that no evil may have befallen him. He was fidelity itself. He would die for me!"