That evening, when Rose Faverney was admitted to the young lord's presence, through the agency of the enamored Jules, she brought him permission to visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and she brought with her a plan, sketched by Melanie's own hand, of the garden, through which, by the aid of a master-key and a rope-ladder, he was to gain access to her presence. "My lady says, Monsieur Raoul," added the merry girl, with a light laugh, "that she admits you only on the faith that you will keep the word which you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the condition that I shall be present at all your interviews with her." "Her honor were safe in my hands," replied the young man, "without that precaution. But I appreciate the motive, and accept the condition." "You will remember, then, my lord--at midnight. There will be one light burning in the window, when that is extinguished, all will be safe, and you may enter fearless. Will you remember?" "Nothing but death shall prevent me. Nor that, if the spirits of the dead may visit what they love best on earth. So tell her, Rose. Farewell!" Four hours afterward St. Renan stood in the shadow of a dense trellice in the garden, watching the moment when that love-beacon should expire. The clock of St. Germain l'Auxerre struck twelve, and at the instant all was darkness. Another minute and the lofty wall was scaled, and Melanie was in the arms of Raoul. It was a strange, grim, gloomy gothic chamber, full of strange niches and recesses of old stone-work. The walls were hung with gilded tapestries of Spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places by the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cup-boards, one of which, close beside the mantlepiece, was closed by a curiously carved door of heavy oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure of the wall. Lighted as it was only by the flickering of the wood-fire on the hearth, for the thickness of the walls, and the damp of the old vaulted room rendered a fire acceptable even at midsummer, that antique chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but little cared the young lovers for its dismal seeming; and if they noticed it at all, it was but to jest at the contrast of its appearance with the happy hours which they passed within it. Happy, indeed, they were--almost too happy--though as pure and guiltless as if they had been hours spent within a nunnery of the strictest rule, and in the presence of a sainted abbess. Happy, indeed, they were; and although brief, oft repeated. For, thenceforth, not a night passed but Raoul visited his Melanie, and tarried there enjoying her sweet converse, and bearing to her every day glad tidings of the process of his schemes, and of the certainty of their escape, until the approach of morning warned him to make good his retreat ere envious eyes should be abroad to make espials.