"This way, messieurs, this way!" he said; as he had on that
other night, while we groped our way upwards in the dark. He
opened a door, and a light shone out; and we entered a room that
seemed, with its bare walls and rafters, its scanty stool and
table and lamp, the very counterpart of that other room. In one
wall appeared the dingy curtains of an alcove, closely drawn; and
the shutter stood open, until, at the child's request, expressed
in the same words, I went to it and closed it.
We were both so well muffled up and disguised, and the light of
the lamp shining upwards so completely distorted the features,
that I had no fear of recognition, unless the King's voice
betrayed him. But when he spoke, breaking the oppressive silence
of the room, his tone was as strange and hollow as I could wish.
"The shutter is closed," be said; "but the shutter of God's mercy
is never closed!"
Still, knowing that this was the crucial moment, and that we
should be detected now if at all, I found it; an age before the
voice behind the curtains answered "Amen!" and yet another age
before the hidden speaker continued "Who are you?"
"The cure of St.
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