'You liar, you coward!' she exclaimed, dragging in her hand the old jacket she had torn. 'See this! I have been mangling it. I thought for a moment it was you, and I bit it, and scratched it, and stamped on it, and beat it. Wait till I have the chance of serving you as I have served this dress. I pray night and morning for the chance, and I dream that it is about to be answered. I dream--' she put one hand to her brow, and looked frowning on the floor--'I dream that I hear voices from all the yards and courts, from all the cells and dungeons--thin shrill voices, all night long, crying out to Heaven;--the voices have waxed louder of late, and deeper in tone, and mightier in number, and I have felt the earth heave, and the walls reel, and the towers stagger. Every night the voices are louder and more numerous, and now they roar like thunder, and soon they will rend this prison, and fling its stones far and wide, and then! then, Berthier, I shall come leaping out from among the falling blocks, and run straight at you. I await my time.' 'She is raving,' said the Intendant to De Launay. 'Raving! yes, made so by you. But ah! though you have shut me in here, I shall not be here for long. Perhaps I may be out very soon. When you least expect me, I may come bounding in upon you, through the door or the window, or breaking my way up through the floor, or tearing my way through the ceiling, or burrowing through the walls to get at you.' She stopped, raised and clasped her hands over her head, and pirouetted round her chair two or three times; then, fronting her husband, she continued with a scream: 'I shall be out soon, very soon, and far away from you and my father, where you will never find me, that I am sure of, for, though I know the place, I do not know the name of it.' 'And pray, Madame Plomb, how are you going to get out?' asked Berthier, in a mocking tone; 'are you going to escape through that window, or dig through six feet of stone wall with your nails and teeth?' 'No,' she answered, slyly; 'there are other ways of getting released.' 'Ah!' said the Intendant, in the same bantering manner; 'you are depending on my well-known affection for yourself, which will not suffer me to remain long separated from you.' 'No,' cried Madame Berthier, laughing cunningly; 'I shall not trust to that.' 'Only one way remains,' observed her husband, rubbing his hands,--'a way as pleasant to both parties as could be desired,--a method whereby I shall be saved anxiety on your account, and be placed at liberty to contract a marriage, to raise, perhaps, my little pet to the position of wife.' 'What do you mean?' asked madame, sharply, fastening her restless eyes for the moment upon him. Berthier tapped the walls with his knuckles.