Without a word Frank followed him. He needed action to lessen his fever, to make him forget his mortal anxiety. The office which he was about to fill at Levet's side was rife with peril, but whenever did a desperate man count the cost of his action? CHAPTER XV. SANCTUARY. That same night, in a poorly furnished chamber, Esther sat, with bowed head, and hands clasped in her lap. By her side crouched an aged woman who mumbled incessantly, mingling wails, maledictions, and incomprehensible reminiscences of her childhood with fragments of prayers and scraps of biblical texts. She spoke to herself, never addressing the girl, who on her part paid her no heed. Esther's attention was riveted upon the sounds which reached her from the streets. With every minute the firing of a platoon, the crash of a wall undermined by the flames, or a savage clamor which rent the air, reached her ears and made her tremble. [Illustration] The chamber was situated upon the second floor of a low house at the end of an alley, apparently deserted by its inhabitants; for there was no movement of life and no human being in sight. But at sixty paces away, though invisible, the great artery of Holborn, filled to overflowing with the howling, maddened crowd, sent a rumor of its infernal tumult to the two women. No candle burned in the room, but the neighboring glare from the conflagration of Langdale House illumined every object as distinctly as though it were noonday. Thus the hours dragged themselves away in gloomy monotony, notwithstanding the proximity of the confusion and the fury of human passions in a state of paroxysm. Suddenly Esther sprang to her feet. "Maud," she exclaimed, "the flames are gaining upon us!" It was true. From the side of the little court upon which the chamber looked, the panes of a grated window had burst into fragments, while a tongue of flame had suddenly darted forth, licking the blackened walls and casting its lightning athwart the pervading flare. "Maud! Maud! Soon it will be no longer safe for us to remain here!" "God be praised!" answered the old woman, having raised a vague glance upon the scene. "He gives the victory unto his saints; it is he who has cast both horse and rider into the sea!" "She is madder than ever," thought Esther; "this night has quite unseated her reason.--And Mons. Lebeau does not return!" What was to be done? What resolution ought to be taken? [Illustration] The circumstances which had led her into this perilous situation passed swiftly through her mind. When she had placed her hand in that of the unknown who had pronounced the preconcerted signal,--"The moon has risen!"--she immediately experienced a sense of regret at her fault; but this regret had not been sufficiently potent to arrest in time the accomplishment of her resolution. She permitted herself to be conducted to the door where the sedan-chair awaited her. "No!" she then exclaimed, "this is enough! I will go no farther!"