“And not only,” said he under his breath, laughing at himself, “do I ask whether she will come to the meeting-place, but in reality I hope keenly that she will be there and that I shall see her again and that, both of us victors, we shall fall into one another’s arms.” Through a gate in the little wall, the top of which was bristling with broken bottles, he went into the enclosure. There was no trace of anyone’s passage through the weeds; but it was possible to cross the wall in another place and to climb in through one of the windows at the side. His heart was beating. His fists were clenched. He was ready for the struggle, if a trap had been laid for him. “But how silly I am!” he thought. “Why a trap?” He turned the handle of the worm-eaten door and entered. On the instant he felt that someone was in hiding in the recess beside the door. He had no time to turn upon the assailant. Scarcely did he become aware of him, by instinct rather than by actual vision than a noose that dragged him backwards tightened round his neck and a knee came with brutal violence against the small of his back. Suffocated and jolted, he was at the mercy of his opponent and came heavily to the ground. “A good stroke, Leonard!” he muttered. “A pretty revenge!” He was wrong. It was not Leonard. He caught sight of his assailant’s profile and recognized Beaumagnan. Then while Beaumagnan was tying his hands, he rectified his error and admitted his surprise in the simple words: “So--so--the candidate for the priesthood!” * * * * * The rope which encircled his neck had been run through a ring in the opposite wall just above one of the windows. Beaumagnan who was acting with jerky movements and apparently half mad, opened that window and half opened the shutter that opened outwards. Then, using the ring as a pulley-block, he pulled the rope and compelled Ralph to walk across the room. Ralph saw through the half-opened shutters the empty space, which, from the top of the steep slope on which the lighthouse had been built, fell among sloping boulders and great trunks of trees whose leafy tops shut out the horizon. Beaumagnan twisted him round, set his back against the shutters, and tied him to them by the wrists and ankles. Ralph was now in this predicament: in the case of his trying to move forward, the rope round his neck, tightening through the slip-knot would strangle him; if on the other hand the whim took Beaumagnan to get rid of his victim, he had only to give him a sharp push, the shutters would give way and Ralph, dangling over the abyss, would find himself being hanged. “An excellent position for a serious conversation,” he sneered. Moreover his mind was made up. If it was Beaumagnan’s intention to give him the choice between death and divulging the steps that he, Ralph, had been able to make towards a solution of the problem, he would speak without the slightest hesitation. “I’m at your orders,” he said. “Ask away.”