I was at her heels as she ran across the little court and plunged into a dark doorway beyond. I paused an instant to draw my sword, dropping my cloak that it might not cumber me, and then clattered up the stair behind her. It was dark and narrow and of many turnings, so that she, who knew the place, had reached the top while I was stumbling along midway, cursing the darkness. But she awaited me, and as I reached her side held out her hand to me. My own closed over it in an instant and found it soft and warm and trembling. Here was an adventure after my own heart, and I had had so few adventures! “Cautiously, Monsieur!” she whispered, and led the way along a narrow hall to the right. The darkness was absolute, the atmosphere close and stifling. I began to wonder if I had walked into a trap, but that warm little hand in mine reassured me. Besides, who could know my errand from Marsan, and, not knowing it, who would set a trap for so small a bird as I? Then, suddenly, as we turned a corner, I heard the sound of angry voices and saw a light streaming redly through an open doorway. In a moment we had reached it, and I paused in astonishment as I saw what lay within. There was a great fire blazing on the hearth, which threw into sharp relief a bed with disordered hangings, an open desk with papers overflowing from it to the floor, a chair overturned, even the faded tapestry upon the walls. But it was at none of these I looked, though I found them all bit into my memory afterwards. It was at a man bound to a chair, at two others who were glancing hastily through the papers they were pulling from the drawers of the desk, at a fourth who was making an iron turn white in the glow of the fire. The man in the chair was watching the door with agonized eyes, but of the faces of the others I could see nothing, for they were masked. Even as I stood there, palsied by astonishment, the man at the fire drew forth the iron and turned with it sputtering in his hand. “Come, M. le Comte,” he said, “I think this will answer,” and he advanced towards the prisoner. But the girl was through the doorway ere he had taken a second step. “You curs! You cowards!” she screamed, and ran at him as though to wrench the hissing iron from his hands.