, on this stone, and recover your breath," said Quentin,
"I will return instantly."

"For whom are you?" said the burgher, still detaining him.

"For France--for France," answered Quentin, studying to get away.

"What! my lively young Archer?" said the worthy Syndic. "Nay, if it has
been my fate to find a friend in this fearful night, I will not quit
him, I promise you. Go where you will, I follow, and could I get some of
the tight lads of our guildry together, I might be able to help you in
turn, but they are all squandered abroad like so many pease.--Oh, it is
a fearful night!"

During this time, he was dragging himself on after Quentin, who, aware
of the importance of securing the countenance of a person of such
influence, slackened his pace to assist him, although cursing in his
heart the encumbrance that retarded his pace.

At the top of the stair was an anteroom, with boxes and trunks, which
bore marks of having been rifled, as some of the contents lay on the
floor. A lamp, dying in the chimney, shed a feeble beam on a dead or
senseless man who lay across the hearth.

Bounding from Pavillon like a greyhound from his keeper's leash, and
with an effort which almost overthrew him, Quentin sprang through a
second and a third room, the last of which seemed to be the bedroom of
the Ladies of Croye. No living mortal was to be seen in either of them.
He called upon the Lady Isabelle's name, at first gently, then more
loudly, and then with an accent of despairing emphasis, but no answer
was returned. He wrung his hands, tore his hair, and stamped on the
earth with desperation. At length a feeble glimmer of light, which shone
through a crevice in the wainscoting of a dark nook in the bedroom,
announced some recess or concealment behind the arras. Quentin hasted to
examine it. He found there was indeed a concealed room, but it resisted
his hurried efforts to open it. Heedless of the personal injury he might
sustain, he rushed at the door with the whole force and weight of
his body, and such was the impetus of an effort made betwixt hope and
despair, that it would have burst much stronger fastenings.

He thus forced his way, almost headlong, into a small oratory, where a
female figure, which had been kneeling in agonizing supplication before
the holy image, now sank at length on the floor, under the new terrors
implied in this approaching tumult. He hastily raised her from the
ground, and, joy of joys it was she whom h