to "make the sun shine in a crown" as saith our admirable
Regnier.

"The Sainte-Marthe chamber," said he.

The old woman addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown in a
drawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle had given to
Phoebus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed and ragged little
boy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly approached the drawer,
abstracted the crown, and put in its place a dry leaf which he had
plucked from a fagot.

The old crone made a sign to the two gentlemen, as she called them, to
follow her, and mounted the ladder in advance of them. On arriving at
the upper story, she set her lamp on a coffer, and, Phoebus, like a
frequent visitor of the house, opened a door which opened on a dark
hole. "Enter here, my dear fellow," he said to his companion. The man in
the mantle obeyed without a word in reply, the door closed upon him; he
heard Phoebus bolt it, and a moment later descend the stairs again with
the aged hag. The light had disappeared.

CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER.

Claude Frollo (for we presume that the reader, more intelligent than
Phoebus, has seen in this whole adventure no other surly monk than the
archdeacon), Claude Frollo groped about for several moments in the dark
lair into which the captain had bolted him. It was one of those nooks
which architects sometimes reserve at the point of junction between
the roof and the supporting wall. A vertical section of this kennel, as
Phoebus had so justly styled it, would have made a triangle. Moreover,
there was neither window nor air-hole, and the slope of the roof
prevented one from standing upright. Accordingly, Claude crouched down
in the dust, and the plaster which cracked beneath him; his head was on
fire; rummaging around him with his hands, he found on the floor a
bit of broken glass, which he pressed to his brow, and whose cool-ness
afforded him some relief.

What was taking place at that moment in the gloomy soul of the
archdeacon? God and himself could alone know.

In what order was he arranging in his mind la Esmeralda, Phoebus,
Jacques Charmolue, his young brother so beloved, yet abandoned by him in
the mire, his archdeacon's cassock, his reputation perhaps dragged to la
Falourdel's, all these adventures, all these images? I cannot say. But
it is certain that these ideas formed in his mind a horrible group.

He had been waiting a quarter of an hour;