And then, Mathieu having at last taken his departure, La Vireville was left at the door of the inn, revolving plans. It was tempting to go upstairs now, while the man was below, and (if he could find the right room) slip out of the place with the child. But he would be tracked at once. No plan was sound which did not provide, somehow, for the disposal of Anne's captor. La Vireville was not in the least inclined to boggle at the idea of putting a knife into that gentleman if an opportunity occurred; the difficulty was less to provide that opportunity than to get rid of the ensuing corpse. To go in and quarrel with the man would only lead to tumult and imprisonment. Yet if he delayed and followed the two to-morrow, waiting for fortune to smile upon him, they would all three, with every hour, be nearing Paris and leaving the coast farther behind them, and adding thereby to the length and risk of the return journey. At any rate he would, he decided, stay at the inn for the night, that is, unless Anne and his 'uncle' were proceeding. "I want a quiet room," he said to the patron. "You can give me one at the back if you choose." And, the apartment in question being shown to him, he further expressed a hope that there was no one near who would come late to bed and disturb him. "There is no other guest in the _Hôtel du Faisan_," replied the landlord, "but the citizen downstairs and his little nephew, and they sleep in Number Nine, which is at the other end of the corridor, as you see. And probably the citizen will retire to bed early, because of the child." "Tiresome," commented the émigré, "to share a room with a child, and to have to regulate your hours of repose accordingly." "That," said the landlord, with a slightly offended air, "is not really necessary in this case. Number Nine has an inner room opening out of it." (3) The fruits of the reflections to which, after this colloquy, the Chevalier de la Vireville abandoned himself in his bedroom were manifested between one and two in the morning, when he stood outside the door which the patron had pointed out at the end of the passage. He had groped his way thither in the darkness, not venturing to bring a candle. At this door he now knocked with extreme gentleness, then again a little louder, and, still receiving no answer, he tried the handle. To his surprise it turned, and the door opened. "Odd!" thought the intruder. "Mme. de Chaulnes' emissary is of a singularly trustful nature." And he slipped in with great caution. The room was absolutely dark, but not silent. A heavy snoring proceeded from the bed, and was, indeed, the only evidence of its whereabouts. "I had not somehow thought him a snorer," reflected La Vireville. "At any rate one knows that he sleeps. Now I wonder whereabouts is that inner room?" Very softly he breathed Anne's name in the close darkness. Nothing but snores answered him.