"The saints preserve me, lady! but how got you hold of a key that not even my Phoebe herself would dare use without Sister Ursula’s permission? She has told me as much herself." "Ah! I have a way," said Kate, her mouth twitching with fun; "and as to daring, I dare anything--for those I love," she added to herself; but the very thought sent a flush of color to her cheek, and moisture to her eye. "As to the key," said the dame, turning it over and over in her hands, "it is as like as a twin to the one that opens the big oak chest at home. I know it well, for I have handled it now nigh upon forty years." "That is good news," replied the young schemer. "I am to go into the garden to-day, but with Mother Beatrice. When she turns her back I think I can throw a string with a stone at the end over the east side, close by the tower turret. Could not Bertrand fasten the key to it then, so that I could draw it up at the next turn? They would not notice such a little thing from the windows." This led to a full account of the hidden entrance, and when they parted, it was with the agreement that a note should be thrown over the wall by a string in case of any emergency, and, until Bertrand and Dick could clear out the passage, the prisoners should remain quiet, and be, above all, particular to excite no suspicion. Mother Beatrice being now pretty well assured that her prisoners were subdued by hunger and long confinement, thought it high time to begin the work of their conversion, and on this very day she had sent Father Paul, one of the confessors of the convent, to have a conversation with them. When he entered the room it was afternoon, and some sunbeams which had lost their way among these grim walls and towers, shot through the grated window and rested on the face of a pale, thin boy, who was reclining on the straw in the corner, partly supported by the wall, while with his long, thin fingers he was braiding some straw into fancy shapes. Beside him knelt his brother, trying to pin around him a tattered cloak in such a way as to keep off the cold air from the window. He sprang to his feet as the door opened, and placed himself as if for a shield in front of the sick child. "Do not be afraid, my sons," said the monk, softening his tones involuntarily at the sight of such suffering. He drew a wooden stool to the side of the bed, and laid his hand on the boy’s high forehead with such a tender touch that Geoffrey’s fears were for the moment disarmed. "Thou art very ill, my son. Wouldst thou not like to leave this sad place and go out into the bright world? It is almost spring now--the flowers will soon be out in the woods." The boy did not answer for a moment; he only gave a long, deep sigh, but it was such a longing and yet patient sigh, that Geoffrey’s brow waxed dark with indignation, and he walked away toward the window to conceal his feelings.