linen in a small valise.
They managed it, however, and, the brief preparation completed, the
moment of parting arrived. Firmly and eloquently, though in haste,
Berthe assured Paul of her changeless love and faith, and promised him
to wait for him for any length of time in France, if better days should
be slow of coming, or to join him in some foreign land, if they were
never to come. Her father was present, full of compassion and misgiving.
At length he said:

"Come, Paul, you must leave her; every moment is of importance."

The young man and his betrothed were standing on the spot whence they
had taken the casket; the carved rail with the heavy curtains might have
been the outer sanctuary of an altar, and they bride and bridegroom
before it, with earnest, loving faces, and clasped hands.

"Farewell, Paul," said Berthe; "promise me once more, in this the moment
of our parting, that you will come to me again, if you are alive, when
the danger is past."

"Whether I am living or dead, Berthe," said Paul de Senanges, strongly
moved by some sudden inexplicable instinct, "I will come to you again."

In a few more minutes, Prosper Alix and his guest, who carried, not
without difficulty, the small but heavy leather valise, had disappeared
in the distance, and Berthe was on her knees before the _prie-dieu_ of
the _ci-devant_ Marquise, her face turned toward the "Holy Hill" of
Fourvieres.

Pichon, _maitre_, and his sons, _garcons-macons_, were well-to-do
people, rather morose, exceedingly avaricious, and of taciturn
dispositions; but they were not ill spoken of by their neighbors. They
had amassed a good deal of money in their time, and were just then
engaged on a very lucrative job. This was the construction of several of
the steep descents, by means of stairs, straight and winding, cut in the
face of the _coteaux_, by which pedestrians are enabled to descend into
the town. Pichon _pere_ was a _proprietaire_ as well; his property was
that which is now in the possession of Giraudier, _pharmacien, premiere
classe_, and which was destined to attain a sinister celebrity during
his proprietorship. One of the straightest and steepest of the stairways
had been cut close to the _terre_ which the mason owned, and a massive
wall, destined to bound the high-road at the foot of the declivity, was
in course of construction.

When Prosper Alix and Paul de Senanges reached the abode of Pichon, the
master-mason, with his sons and workm