."

"Certainly," agreed the lady, "whatever you like, five francs, ten francs."

"Five francs is quite enough," replied Alice, to Mother Bonneton's great
disgust. "I love the towers on a day like this."

So they started up the winding stone stairs of the Northern tower, the lady
going first with lithe, nervous steps, although Alice counseled her not to
hurry.

"It's a long way to the top," cautioned the girl, "three hundred and
seventy steps."

But the lady pressed on as if she had some serious purpose before her,
round and round past an endless ascending surface of gloomy gray stone,
scarred everywhere with names and initials of foolish sightseers, past
narrow slips of fortress windows through the massive walls, round and round
in narrowing circles until finally, with sighs of relief, they came out
into the first gallery and stood looking down on Paris laughing under the
yellow sun.

"Ouf!" panted the lady, "it _is_ a climb."

They were standing on the graceful stone passageway that joins the two
towers at the height of the bells and were looking to the west over the
columned balustrade, over the Place Notre-Dame, dotted with queer little
people, tinkling with bells of cab horses, clanging with gongs of yonder
trolley cars curving from the Pont Neuf past old Charlemagne astride of his
great bronze horse. Then on along the tree-lined river, on with widening
view of towers and domes until their eyes rested on the green spreading
_bois_ and the distant heights of Saint Cloud.

And straightway Alice began to point out familiar monuments, the spire of
the Sainte Chapelle, the square of the Louvre, the gilded dome of
Napoleon's tomb, the crumbling Tour Saint Jacques, disfigured now with
scaffolding for repairs, and the Sacre Cour, shining resplendent on the
Montmartre hill.

To all of which the lady listened indifferently. She was plainly thinking
of something else, and, furtively, she was watching the girl.

"Tell me," she asked abruptly, "is your name Alice?"

"Yes," answered the other in surprise.

The lady hesitated. "I thought that was what the old woman called you."
Then, looking restlessly over the panorama: "Where is the _conciergerie?_"

Alice started at the word. Among all the points in Paris this was the one
toward which her thoughts were tending, the _conciergerie_, the grim prison
where her lover was!

"It is there," she replied, struggling with her emotion, "behind that
cupola of the Chamber of