As soon as she opened the door, the form shrouded in the mantle burst violently in, and passing La Martinière, cried in a wild voice, "Take me to your lady!" La Martinière held up the light which she was carrying, and the glimmer fell on the face of a very young man, distorted and frightfully drawn, and as pale as death. She almost fell down on the landing for terror when he opened his cloak and showed the glittering hilt of a stiletto sticking in his doublet. He flashed his gleaming eyes at her, and cried, more wildly than before, "Take me to your lady, I tell you." La Martinière saw that her mistress was in the utmost danger. All her affection for her, who was to her as the kindest of mothers, flamed up and created a courage which she herself would scarcely have thought herself capable of. She quickly closed the door of her room, moved rapidly in front of it, and said, in a brave, firm voice, "Your furious behaviour, now that you have got into the house, is very different to what might have been expected from the way you spoke down in the street. I see now that I had pity on you a little too easily. My lady you shall not see or speak with at this hour. If you have no bad designs, and are not afraid to show yourself in daylight, come and tell her your business to-morrow; but take yourself off out of this house now." He heaved a hollow sigh, glared at La Martinière with a terrible expression, and grasped his dagger. She silently commended her soul to God, but stood firm and looked him straight in the face, pressing herself more firmly against the door through which he would have to pass in order to reach her mistress. "Let me get to your lady, I tell you!" he cried once more. "Do what you will," said La Martinière, "I shall not move from this spot. Finish the crime which you have begun to commit. A shameful death on the Place de Grève will overtake you, as it has your accursed comrades in wickedness." "Ha! you are right, La Martinière," he cried. "I am armed, and I look as if I were an accursed robber and murderer. But my comrades are not executed--are not executed," and he drew his dagger, advancing with poisonous looks towards the terrified woman. "Jesus!" she cried, expecting her death-wound; but at that moment there came up from the street below the clatter and the ring of arms, and the hoof-tread of horses. "La Marechaussée! La Marechaussée! Help! help!" she cried. "Wretched woman, you will be my destruction," he cried. "All is over now--all over! Here, take it; take it. Give this to your lady now, or to-morrow if you like it better." As he said this in a whisper, he took the candelabra from her, blew out the tapers, and placed a casket in her hands. "As you prize your eternal salvation," he cried, "give this to your lady." He dashed out of the door, and was gone.