They passed through Sens, a large town, in which there lived a bishop, to whom their errand might have been made known had not there been reason to fear that such an application might injure the cause of the Countess more than it would benefit it, and then they crossed the Seine and passed through Melun and several small towns and villages; and, late in the afternoon of the fourth day, they rode into Paris, with dusty clothes and tired horses, but with hearts full of hope. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII. IT must not be supposed that the officers of the Inquisition and the monks of the monastery which, as has been mentioned before, stood a few miles from Viteau, were all this time ignorant of the fact that, when the Countess of Viteau fled from her home, she took refuge in the castle of the Count de Barran. It was not many days before this was known at the monastery. But the officers had returned to Toulouse to report their failure to secure the person for whom they had been sent; and the monk who was dispatched with the information that the Countess had not fled the country, as was at first supposed, but had taken refuge within a day's ride of Viteau, had a long journey to make to the south of France; while the party which was immediately dispatched by the Inquisition to the castle of Barran had a long journey to make back to him. But it finally came, and it was a different party from that which had been sent before. It was larger; it contained many more armed men, and it was under the control of a leader who would not give up the pursuit of the Countess simply because he should fail to find her in the first place in which he sought her. About the time that the Count de Lannes and our young friends entered Paris, the expedition from the Inquisition at Toulouse reached the great gate of the castle of Barran. This visit threw the Count, and those of his household who understood its import, into a state of despair almost as great as if it had not been daily feared and expected ever since the Countess had come to the castle. The Count did not know what to do. He had thought the matter over and over, but had never been able to make up his mind as to what his course would be in case the officers should appear while the Countess remained in his castle. He felt that he could not give up this lady, the wife of his old brother-in-arms, who had come to him for protection; but he could not fight the company that was now approaching, for such an act would have been considered the same thing as fighting Christianity itself. He was in a sad state of anxiety as he went to the gate to meet, in person, these most unwelcome visitors; and he wished many times, as he crossed the court-yard, that he had yielded to his first impulse and had insisted that the Countess should fly to England while there was yet time.