"Oh, that I discovered from one of the nuns," replied Marie. "We are at the house of the Black Penitents, in the Rue St. Denis. I remember the outside of it well; a large dark building with only two windows to the street. Do you not remember it? You must have seen it in passing." "I am not so well acquainted with the city as you are, dear Marie," replied Charles of Montsoreau; "but, depend upon it, where they have confined me is not in the house of the Black Penitents. It would be a violation of the rules of the order which could not be." "It communicates with their dwelling," replied Marie de Clairvaut; "of that at least I am certain; for the Queen, when she brought me hither, took me not into the open air. She led me indeed through numerous passages, one of which, some ten or twelve yards in length, was nearly dark, for it had no windows, and was only lighted by the door left open behind us. I was then placed in a little room while the Queen went on, and a short time after I heard a voice, that made my heart beat strangely, begin to sing a song that you once sung at Montsoreau; and when I was thinking of you Charles, and all that you had done for me--how you had first saved me from the reiters, and then rescued me from the deep stream, and had then come to seek me and deliver me in the midst of death and pestilence--I was thinking of all these things, when Catherine came back, and without telling me what was her intention, led me hither." "Hark!" cried Charles of Montsoreau. "They shout again. I wonder that we have heard no farther tidings." And they both sat and listened for some minutes, but no indication of any farther event took place, and they gradually resumed their conversation, beginning in a low tone, as if afraid of losing a sound from without. Marie de Clairvaut had already told her lover how she had remained at Epernon for a day or two under the protection of the wife of the Duke, and had been thence brought by her to Paris and placed in the convent at a late hour of the evening; but as the time wore away, and their hopes of liberation did not seem about to be realized, she recurred to the subject of her arrival, saying, "There is one thing which makes me almost fear they will deceive him, Charles. I forgot to tell you, that as we paused before this building on the night that I was brought hither, while the gates were being opened by the portress, a horseman rode up to the side of the carriage and gazed in. There were torches on the other side held by the servants round the gate, and though I could not see that horseman as well as he could see me, yet I feel almost sure that it was the face of the Abbé de Boisguerin I beheld." "I know he was to return to Paris," said Charles of Montsoreau, "after accompanying my brother some part of the way back to the château. But fear not him, dear Marie; he has no power or influence here."