"I have waited for hours, and was just coming to seek you. What does this mean?" he exclaimed, hoarsely. A whispered explanation forced a smothered oath from his lips. "Be calm. There is but one way left us. We will conceal ourselves near the door and wrest her from them when they bring her out," said Eliot Van Zandt. CHAPTER VII. But no place of concealment presented itself. The broad pavement showed a long, unbroken space of moonlit stone, save where one tall tree reared its stately height outside the curb-stone, and flung long, weird shadows across the front of madame's house. Carmontelle looked up and down the street, and shook his head. "I can see no hiding-place but the tree," he said. "We need none better, unless you are too stout to scale it," Van Zandt answered, coolly, turning a questioning glance upon the rather corpulent form of his good-looking companion. "You will see," laughed the Southerner, softly. He glanced up and down the street, and seeing no one in sight, made a bound toward the tree, flung out his arms, and scaled it with admirable agility, finding a very comfortable seat among its low-growing branches. Van Zandt followed his example with boyish ease, and they were soon seated close to each other on the boughs of the big tree, almost as comfortable as if they had been lounging on the satin couches of madame's _recherché_ salon. It was delightful up there among the cool green leaves, with the fresh wind blowing the perfume of madame's flowers into their faces. "I feel like a boy again," said the journalist, gayly. "Softly; we are opposite the windows of madame's chamber, I think," cautioned Carmontelle. "She will not come up yet; she will wait in the salon for Remond. It is but a few minutes to midnight." A step approached, and they held their breath in excessive caution. It passed on--only a guardian of the peace pacing his beat serenely, his brass buttons shining in the moonlight. Van Zandt whispered: "I am not sure but we should have invoked the aid of the law in our trouble." But Pierre Carmontelle shook his head. "The law is too slow sometimes," he said. "We will place the little girl in some safe refuge first, then, if Madame Lorraine attempts to make trouble, we will resort to legal measures. I am not apprehensive of trouble on that score, however, for madame really has no legal right to the girl. Has she not declared scores of times that her maid died, and left the child upon her hands, and that, only for pity's sake, she would have sent her off to an orphan asylum?" Steps and voices came along the pavement--two roystering lads, fresh from some festal scene, their steps unsteady with wine. They passed out of sight noisily recounting their triumph to each other. Then the echo of wheels in the distance, "low on the sand, loud on the stone." "Are you armed?" whispered the Louisianian, nervously. "No." The cold steel of a pistol pressed his hand.