Marguerite saw it all, and recognized the calamity that had fallen upon them; but the disappointment was too mighty for words, far too awful for tears; the light reeled before her eyes, the dungeon seemed to contract itself into a grave. She felt herself falling, but Monsieur Jacques caught her in his arms, and carried her from the dungeon. With the speed and strength of a wild animal he threaded that labyrinth of horrors, mounted the broken stairs, and carried her out into an open guard-room, through which the morning air swept. Here he bathed her face with water, rubbed her hands—but all was in vain; the dead man he had just left upon the straw did not seem more lifeless than this young girl. Jacques had left two living persons in the cell with the dead man, but they were more like ghosts than human beings. The guard was terror-stricken; the lantern shook in his strong hand. “Is she, too, gone?” faltered Jacques, who had left Marguerite when she returned to life, and stood looking down at the pale form lying by the dead upon the straw. “God help us! This is fearful!” “I do not know, she does not seem to breathe,” answered Christopher, holding the light on a level with the deathly face. “If it were so, a world of trouble might be spared us,” he whispered to himself. “I almost wish we had not meddled with this. I fear me his death will bring us greater evil than if we had turned him free into the street.” “She is not dead,” exclaimed Jacques. “She moves, her eyes open. Heavens, how they look!” The woman arose upon her hands and knees painfully, and with evident dizziness. Then she stooped over the dead man, and turned his face to the light. The whole body moved in the straw as she did this; but wonderful strength seemed given to her, and though it was like turning a statue of marble, she did it tenderly. She put the scattering locks back from the worn face, and pored over it with yearning fondness, as if she had parted from her husband but yesterday, and hoped yet to arouse him. “Changed! Oh, my love! how changed! and it seems such a little time, now that we are together. Wake him for me—you can; it is the chill and the damp of this awful place. No wonder he is cold! I, too, am shivering. Wake him, I say—you should know how.” “My poor woman, he is dead! I have no power over him now,” answered the guard, shrinking from her outstretched arms. Madame Gosner arose and stood upright, regarding the two scared faces with a fixed look. “It was you that killed him,” she said; “but who gave the order? Was it the king?” “The king! Madame, this is treason!” “And this is death!” cried the woman, pointing downward with her finger, “death! for which there shall be a terrible atonement. Where is my child? Is she afraid of this poor clay, which was her father—her father? Oh, my God! and he was alive but yesterday. Only one day too late. Where is my child, I say? There is something for her to do.”