"Yes, yes," she declared. "I remember. We even spoke to each other sometimes; you used to blush. Yes, that's it: your name was Stephane. But how do you come to be called Maroux?"
"Madeleine and I were not children of the same father."
"Ah," she said, "that was what misled me!"
She gave him her hand:
"Well, Stephane," she said, "as we are old friends and have renewed our acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. For the moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. Have you the strength?"
"The strength, yes: I have not had such a very bad time. But how are we to go from here?"
"By the same road by which I came, a ladder communicating with the upper passage of cells."
He was now standing up:
[Pg 147]"You had the courage, the pluck?" he asked, at last realizing what she had dared to do.
"Oh, it was not very difficult!" she declared. "Francois was so anxious! He maintained that you were both occupying old torture-chambers… death-chambers…"
It was as though these words aroused him violently from a dream and made him suddenly see that it was madness to converse in such circumstances.
"Go away!" he cried. "Francois is right! Oh, if you knew the risk you are running. Please, please go!"
He was beside himself, as though convulsed by the thought of an immediate peril. She tried to calm him, but he entreated her:
"Another second may be your undoing. Don't stay here… I am condemned to death and to the most terrible death. Look at the ground on which we are standing, this sort of floor… But it's no use talking about it. Oh, please do go!"
"With you," she said.
"Yes, with me. But save yourself first."
She resisted and said, firmly:
"For us both to be saved, Stephane, we must above all things remain calm. What I did just now we can do again only by calculating all our actions and controlling our excitement. Are you ready?"
"Yes," he said, overcome by her magnificent confidence.
"Then follow me."
She stepped to the very edge of the precipice and leant forward:
[Pg 148]"Give me your hand," she said, "to help me keep my balance."
She turned round, flattened herself against the cliff and felt the surface with her free hand.
Not finding the ladder, she leant outward slightly.
The ladder had become displaced. No doubt, when Veronique, perhaps with too abrupt a movement, had set foot in the cave, the iron hook of the right-hand upright had slipped and the ladder, hanging only by the other hook, had swung like a pendulum.
The bottom rungs were now out of reach.
[Pg 149]
CHAPTER VIII
Had Veronique been alone, she would have yielded to one of those moods of despondency which her nature, brave though it was, could not escape in the face of the unrelenting animosity of fate. But in the presence of Stephane, who she felt to be the weaker and who was certainly exhausted by his captivity, she had the strength to restrain herself and announce, as though mentioning quite an ordinary incident:
"The ladder has swung out of our reach."
Stephane looked at her in dismay:
"Then… then we are lost!"
"Why should we be lost?" she asked, with a smile.
"There is no longer any hope of getting away."
"What do you mean? Of course there is. What about Francois?"
"Francois?"
"Certainly. In an hour at most, Francois will have made his escape; and, when he sees the ladder and the way I came, he will call to us. We shall hear him easily. We have only to be patient."
"To be patient!" he said, in terror. "To wait for an hour! But they are sure to be here in less than that. They keep a constant watch."
"Well, we will manage somehow."
He pointed to the wicket in the door:
"Do you see that wicket?" he said. "They[Pg 150] open it each time. They will see us through the grating."
"There's a shutter to it. Let's close it."
"They will come in."
"Then we won't close it and we'll keep up our confidence, Stephane."
"I'm frightened for you, not for myself."
"You mustn't be frightened either for me or for yourself… If the worst comes to the worst, we are able to defend ourselves," she added, showing him a revolver which she had taken from her father's rack of arms and carried on her ever since.
"Ah," he said, "what I fear is that we shall not even be called upon to defend ourselves! They have other means."
"What means?"
He did not answer. He had flung a quick glance at the floor; and Veronique for a moment examined its curious structure.
All around, following the circumference of the walls, was the granite itself, rugged and uneven. But outlined in the granite was a large square. They could see, on each of the four sides, the deep crevice that divided it from the rest. The timbers of which it consisted were worn and grooved, full of cracks and gashes, but nevertheless massive and powerful. The fourth side almost skirted the edge of the precipice, from which it was divided by eight inches at most.
"A trap-door?" she asked, with a shudder.
"No, not that," he said. "It would be too heavy."
"Then what?"
"I don't know. Very likely it is nothing but a[Pg 151] remnant of some past contrivance which no longer works. Still…"
"Still what?"
"Last night… or rather this morning there was a creaking sound down below there. It seemed to suggest attempts, but they stopped at once… it's such a long time since!… No, the thing no longer works and they can't make use of it."
"Who's they?"
Without waiting for his answer, she continued:
"Listen, Stephane, we have a few minutes before us, perhaps fewer than we think. Francois will be free at any moment now and will come to our rescue. Let us make the most of the interval and tell each other the things which both of us ought to know. Let us discuss matters quietly. We are threatened with no immediate danger; and the time will be well employed."
Veronique was pretending a sense of security which she did not feel. That Francois would make his escape she refused to doubt; but who could tell that the boy would go to the window and notice the hook of the hanging ladder? On failing to see his mother, would he not rather think of following the underground tunnel and running to the Priory?
However, she mastered herself, feeling the need of the explanation for which she had asked, and, sitting down on a granite projection which formed a sort of bench, she at once began to tell Stephane the events which she had witnessed and in which she had played a leading part, from the moment when her investigations led her to the deserted cabin containing Maguennoc's dead body.
Stephane listened to the terrifying narrative with[Pg 152]out attempting to interrupt her but with an alarm marked by his gestures of abhorrence and the despairing expression of his face. M. d'Hergemont's death in particular seemed to crush him, as did Honorine's. He had been greatly attached to both of them.
"There, Stephane," said Veronique, when she had described the anguish which she suffered after the execution of the sisters Archignat, the discovery of the underground passage and her interview with Francois. "That is all that I need absolutely tell you. I thought that you ought to know what I have kept from Francois, so that we may fight our enemies together."
He shook his head:
"Which enemies?" he said. "I, too, in spite of your explanations, am asking the very question which you asked me. I have a feeling that we are flung into the midst of a great tragedy which has continued for years, for centuries, and in which we have begun to play our parts only at the moment of the crisis, at the moment of the terrific cataclysm prepared by generations of men. I may be wrong. Perhaps there is nothing more than a disconnected series of sinister, weird and horrible coincidences amid which we are tossed from side to side, without being able to appeal to any other reasons than the whim of chance. In reality I know no more than you do. I am surrounded by the same obscurity, stricken by the same sorrows and the same losses. It's all just insanity, extravagant convulsions, unprecedent shocks, the crimes of savages, the fury of the barbaric ages."