All at once a new idea struck the man. He had been to the Bastille in disguise more than once, through that means many of its secrets had become known, among the most important that of Dr. Gosner’s identity. If he presented the king’s pardon, the keeper might recognise him, and thus destroy all chance of further information. This fear made Monsieur Jacques hesitate. Madame Gosner saw this, and the color left her face. At every step she had feared some delay, for nothing but disappointment and trouble seemed absolutely real to her. “What is it?” she said, in breathless terror. “Why do you hesitate?” Monsieur Jacques explained the cause of his uneasiness. But directly the cloud left his face. “It proves nothing,” he argued, “except that I am connected with those who have power with the king. Let them recognize my face, the paper itself is our indorsement of loyalty.” Madame Gosner drew a deep breath, and the light came back to Marguerite’s frightened eyes. “I feared you were about to forsake us,” she said. “Did you, indeed, fear it?” he asked, kindling with gratitude. The intensity of his voice surprised her; she looked up wonderingly. To her Monsieur Jacques was like a brother on whom her weakness could lean with a certainty of support. Could she have seen the smothered passion that lay crouching like a lion in his heart, ready to leap forth at a word or smile from her, the truth would have frightened her. As it was, she gave him a pathetic smile; for, with her whole being so preoccupied, she could do no more than that, but it touched him to the heart. By this time they were in sight of the Bastille, which was approached through a tangle of narrow streets, and surrounded, so far as the defences would permit, by low and squalid buildings, for the very atmosphere of the prison drove thrift and cheerfulness away. Nothing but misery itself could be forced into propinquity with the fetid waters of that moat, or the sounds that came across it sometimes, when the night was still. Those three persons stood before the draw-bridge, which led to the governor’s quarters; and looked across it with eager, wistful glances. The gaunt towers, blackened with age, into which the light crept sluggishly through narrow loop-holes that gashed them like wounds; the flat, dead walls, thick almost as the quarries from which they were dug, pierced in like manner with deep slits, which drank up all the light before it penetrated to the dungeons, flung their terrible shadows in the distance. Before them was the draw-bridge, with its ponderous timbers uplifted and held in place by bars of iron that seemed to have rusted in their staples, against which it strained and wailed like a monster bolted to the wall.