I turned away sharply; a hundred horrid thoughts assailed me, and I was in prison! Oh, the anguish of such enforced quiet! Where was Ramodanofsky, and that knave Pierrot? I was beside myself with futile rage. I went once more to the door and beat upon it, not with any real hope of escape, but it served as a vent to my uncontrollable excitement. To be a man, and caged at such a moment! I envied mademoiselle her tears and her resignation; in sooth, it is easier for a woman to be a martyr. She is accustomed to the surrender to evil destiny, bowed into submission to the stronger will; but with a man it is different. I paced that narrow cell, inwardly raving at myself and Von Gaden; if no one else imagined my misadventure, he was keen enough to divine it, and I saw no excuse for this miserable delay. Could it be that they had come, and partially searched the house, and gone away again without discovering the cellar dungeons? The thought drove the cold sweat out on my forehead. We might easily starve there without any one hearing our outcries, and the villain who had locked us in would have fled from the new master of the house, and was even now, perhaps, laughing at my folly in leaving him outside a door. And in the mean while, what would happen to Zénaïde? I thought of her constantly; her fair face and blue eyes and her long flaxen hair stood out before me like a picture on the dark background of my despair. How little I had accomplished to save her from the fate which threatened her! How easily I had permitted my enemies to outwit me! Fool that I was!--but for the French mirror, I might have been lying now stiff and stark in Vladimir’s place. I had been such a blunderer in all else, I marveled that I had not fallen a victim in this also. The hours dragged wearily past, and it must have been near midnight when mademoiselle came again to the door. “There is something going on in the house,” she said breathlessly. “I have been listening at my window, and have heard noises in the court.” I was alert at once. “Then we must make an outcry, mademoiselle,” I said, “or we shall never be found. Go to the window and shriek for help, and I will beat upon the door.” “Is it wise, Philippe?” she asked fearfully. “It might be some enemy, and it would be so easy to demolish us.” “Nonsense, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed impatiently. “Is it better to perish of hunger? Moreover, it must be our friends; they have been long in coming, too. Think of Zénaïde, mademoiselle, and help me to rouse them.” Thus adjured, she went to the window, and I heard her calling for help in her thin French voice, in the intervals of the noise that I made in beating recklessly upon the door. I kept it up until I was worn out, and pausing for breath, heard steps in the hall; and in another moment the bars were removed from the outside, and the door opened, to reveal Pierrot and Von Gaden.