We looked at one another, and--but it may have been the dim light--I saw no face that was not pale. Fortunately the pause was short. The Curé who had admitted us, unlocked as quickly as he could an inner door. "This way," he said--but the snarling of the beasts outside almost drowned his voice--"if you will follow me, I will let you out by the south entrance. But, be quick, gentlemen, be quick," he continued, pushing us out before him, "or they may guess what we are about, and be there before us." It may be imagined that after that we lost no time. We followed him as quickly as we could along a narrow subterranean passage, very dimly lit, at the end of which a flight of six steps brought us into a second passage. We almost ran along this, and though a locked door delayed us a moment--which seemed a minute, and a long one--the key was found and the door opened. We passed through it, and found ourselves in a long narrow room, the counterpart of that we had first entered. The curé opened the farther door of this; I looked out. The alley outside, the same which led beside the Cathedral to the Chapter House, was empty. "We are in time," I said, with a sigh of relief; it was pleasant to breathe the fresh air again. And I turned, still panting with the haste we had made, to thank the good Curé who had saved us. M. de St. Alais, who followed me, and had kept silence throughout, thanked him also. Then M. le Marquis stood hesitating on the threshold, while I looked to see him hurry away. At last he turned to me. "M. de Saux," he said, speaking with less aplomb than was usual with him--but we were all agitated--"I should thank you also. But perhaps the situation in which we stand towards one another----" "I think nothing of that," I answered harshly. "But that in which we have just stood----" "Ah," he rejoined, shrugging his shoulders, "if you take it that way----" "I do take it that way," I answered--the Captain's blood was not yet dry on the man's sword, and he spoke to me! "I do take it that way. And I warn you, M. le Marquis," I continued sternly, "that if you pursue your plan further, a plan that has already cost one brave man his life, it will recoil on yourselves, and that most terribly." "At least I shall not ask you to shield me," he answered proudly. And he walked carelessly away, sheathing his sword as he went. The passage was still empty. There was no one to stop him. Louis followed him; Du Marc and the surgeon had already disappeared. I fancied that as Louis passed me he hung a moment on his heel; and that he would have spoken to me, would have caught my eye, would have taken my hand, had I given him an opening. But I saw before me Hugues' dead face and sunken eyes, and I set my own face like a stone, and turned away. CHAPTER XIII. A LA LANTERNE.