“But Valérie?” he questioned, holding back. “I do not understand. What of her?” “It is to her we go,” I said. “We will take her with us.” His face lighted with a sudden joy. “Ah, in that case,” and he motioned me forward. I did not wait a second bidding, for I knew that seven o’clock, the hour of her promenade, could not be far distant. I thrust into his hands the sentry’s musket, caught up the torch, and led the way down the stair--two flights more there were, and then a door. I tried it. It was locked. For a moment my heart sank. Then I bethought myself of Drouet’s keys. I tried them, one after another--joy!--the bolt yielded! I opened the door cautiously, for fear some one might be without. I could hear Fronsac chafing on the step behind me, but this was no time for haste. Evening had come in earnest and the court upon which the door opened was so dark that I could perceive no one. I listened for a moment, but heard no sound save a stave of a drinking-song shouted afar off. “Come,” I said, “it seems safe. And we have always a place of refuge in this tower, an we reach it in time to bolt the door behind us.” “But Valérie,” whispered Fronsac, “where is she?” “I was told that at seven she would walk upon the parapet,” I answered, and by a single impulse we raised our eyes to the heights above us. I confess I started at what I saw there--Mademoiselle Valérie, outlined against the red sky of the sunset, poised like a bird about to fly, gazing down at us. And at her side another figure--Roquefort. CHAPTER XIII THE WHEEL TURNS WITH quivering nerves I dragged Fronsac back into the shadow of the wall. I was certain that Roquefort had seen us, but as the minutes passed and he made no sign, I remembered that looking down into darkness is a very different thing to looking up into light. So at last I stood watching him without fear of discovery. He was talking to Mademoiselle Valérie with great earnestness, and while I could see repulsion swaying her from him, there was some wizardry in his words or manner that chained her to the spot. Her face was turned away from him, but he spoke with accompaniment of look and gesture as though she were returning his intent gaze. What was he explaining?--some deviltry, no doubt! And I remembered that when he left her side we must devise some way of getting to her. As I stood there staring up at them a thought leaped to life in my brain that set my nerves a-quiver--why could we not surprise him there at her side and hurl him over the battlement? Then would Claire, too, be released from danger. But how to gain the parapet? I saw that it ran along a structure that stretched from the great east tower to a smaller one on the north. Perhaps from the tower there was a door that opened upon it. But Fronsac of a sudden caught my arm. “Look!” he cried between his teeth. “God’s blood! Look!”