“Ye gods!” he almost screamed, “I did but try you, de Vibrac. You are as white as a sheet.” I came out slowly and laughed myself--a harsh laugh that rang back from the vaulted roof. “’Tis a sorry jest, monsieur, and one for which you must answer me.” He simply bowed--my tone had sobered him--and turned toward the lantern. Ay! The fool had given me the key to my difficulty in his idle jest. Quick as thought I was on him, but he turned like a wildcat at me, and for a moment we grappled together. Backward and forward we swayed. I heard the key he held fall with a clash to the floor, and he caught at my wrist, for my hand was at his throat, and he tugged vainly to free himself. He was sinewy as a leopard, but it would have been a strong man who could have stood against me then, and I held him like a vise. Even by the dim light of the lantern I could see his face grow livid, his lips blue, and his eyes almost start from their sockets. He struggled like a fish in a net, poor wretch! But at last his knees went from under him. Slowly, slowly, he yielded, and I felt him limp as a sack in my arms. One effort, and I flung him from me through the open door of the dungeon, and heard him fall with a half-smothered cry. He lay there like a log, and, closing the door after him, I picked up the key and turned the lock. Then I waited in the silence, slowly arranging my disordered dress. When I had finished, I lifted up the lantern, and as I did so heard a faint cry: “Open! Open, de Vibrac!” There were a hundred agonies in the voice; but he had made me pass through them before. I laughed in my turn at de Bresy, as I repeated and finished his quotation: “... _Facilis descensus Averni: Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, Hic opus, hic labor est._” CHAPTER XXI THE SHAME OF VIBRAC EVEN as the words fell from my lips, their other meaning flashed upon me in vivid, insistent light, and the mockery I flung at the poor fool, there battering at the door with frantic hands, rebounded upon me with double force. It was I--I, whose steps could not be retraced. It was I, who was held prisoner in shades to which the darkness of that dungeon was sunlight.