She will
find the bandage over her eyes easy to remove.'
Before, however, I could pull it away, my enemy had shut the door
from the outside, and I heard the key turn in it. I looked about me;
I was in a narrow paved chamber, with one small window very high up,
through which the sunbeams came, chequered by a tall tree, so high
that I knew it was late in the day, and that we must have driven far.
There was the frame of a narrow bedstead in one corner, a straw
chair, a crucifix, and an empty cell in a deserted convent; but there
was a stone table projecting from the wall, on which had been placed
a few toilette necessaries, and a pitcher of water stood on the
floor.
I was glad to drink a long draught, and then, as I saw there was no
exit, I could not but make myself more fit to be seen, for my hair
had been pulled down and hung on my shoulders, and my face--ah! it
had never looked anything like that, save on the one day when Eustace
and I had the great battle, and our grand-mother punished us both by
bread and water for a week.
After I had made myself look a little more like a respectable widow,
I knelt down before the crucifix to implore that I might be defended,
and not be wanting to my son or myself. I had scarcely done so,
however, when the door was opened, and as I rose to my feet I beheld
my brother-in-law, d'Aubepine.
'Armand, brother,' I cried joyfully, 'are you come to my rescue? Did
you meet my sister?'
For I really thought she had sent him, and I readily placed my hand
in his as he said: 'It depends only on yourself to be free.
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