of a stone cart dashed against my window and broke in the grating. And
how I cursed the carter, too."

"'Tis true," said another archer, "I was there."

Always and everywhere people are to be found who have seen everything.
This unexpected testimony from the archer re-encouraged the recluse,
whom this interrogatory was forcing to cross an abyss on the edge of
a knife. But she was condemned to a perpetual alternative of hope and
alarm.

"If it was a cart which did it," retorted the first soldier, "the stumps
of the bars should be thrust inwards, while they actually are pushed
outwards."

"Ho! ho!" said Tristan to the soldier, "you have the nose of an
inquisitor of the Chatelet. Reply to what he says, old woman."

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, driven to bay, and in a voice that was
full of tears in despite of her efforts, "I swear to you, monseigneur,
that 'twas a cart which broke those bars. You hear the man who saw it.
And then, what has that to do with your gypsy?"

"Hum!" growled Tristan.

"The devil!" went on the soldier, flattered by the provost's praise,
"these fractures of the iron are perfectly fresh."

Tristan tossed his head. She turned pale.

"How long ago, say you, did the cart do it?"

"A month, a fortnight, perhaps, monseigheur, I know not."

"She first said more than a year," observed the soldier.

"That is suspicious," said the provost.

"Monseigneur!" she cried, still pressed against the opening, and
trembling lest suspicion should lead them to thrust their heads through
and look into her cell; "monseigneur, I swear to you that 'twas a cart
which broke this grating. I swear it to you by the angels of paradise.
If it was not a cart, may I be eternally damned, and I reject God!"

"You put a great deal of heat into that oath;" said Tristan, with his
inquisitorial glance.

The poor woman felt her assurance vanishing more and more. She had
reached the point of blundering, and she comprehended with terror that
she was saying what she ought not to have said.

Here another soldier came up, crying,--

"Monsieur, the old hag lies. The sorceress did not flee through the Rue
de Mouton. The street chain has remained stretched all night, and the
chain guard has seen no one pass."

Tristan, whose face became more sinister with every moment, addressed
the recluse,--

"What have you to say to that?"

She tried to make head against this new incident,

"That I do not know, monseigneur; that I m