ate them with little spots
of clarity. "I am not enthusiastic about trying to climb a flight of
broken, irregular stairs. And anyway, what do you think you can see up
there? It's misty and getting dark. No, have a heart."

"What difference is it to you where you take your airing? Come on. I
assure you you will see something unusual."

"Oh! you brought me here on purpose?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you say so?"

He followed Des Hermies into the darkness under the porch. At the back
of the cellarway a little essence lamp, hanging from a nail, lighted a
door, the tower entrance.

For a long time, in utter darkness, they climbed a winding stair. Durtal
was wondering where the keeper had gone, when, turning a corner, he saw
a shaft of light, then he stumbled against the rickety supports of a
"double-current" lamp in front of a door. Des Hermies pulled a bell cord
and the door swung back.

Above them on a landing they could see feet, whether of a man or of a
woman they could not tell.

"Ah! it's you, M. des Hermies," and a woman bent over, describing an
arc, so that her head was in a stream of light. "Louis will be very glad
to see you."

"Is he in?" asked Des Hermies, reaching up and shaking hands with the
woman.

"He is in the tower. Won't you stop and rest a minute?"

"Why, when we come down, if you don't mind."

"Then go up until you see a grated door--but what an old fool I am! You
know the way as well as I do."

"To be sure, to be sure.... But, in passing, permit me to introduce my
friend Durtal."

Durtal, somewhat flustered, made a bow in the darkness.

"Ah, monsieur, how fortunate. Louis is so anxious to meet you."

"Where is he taking me?" Durtal wondered as again he groped along behind
his friend, now and then, just as he felt completely lost, coming to the
narrow strip of light admitted by a barbican, and again proceeding in
inky darkness. The climb seemed endless. Finally they came to the barred
door, opened it, and found themselves on a frame balcony with the abyss
above and below. Des Hermies, who seemed perfectly at home, pointed
downward, then upward. They were halfway up a tower the face of which
was overlaid with enormous criss-crossing joists and beams riveted
together with bolt heads as big as a man's fist. Durtal could see no
one. He turned and, clinging to the hand rail, groped along the wall
toward the daylight which stole down between the inclined leaves of the
sounding-shutters.

Le