"Now let him go," said a voice at the corner of the street; and at the same moment was heard the galloping of horses.
"Grandchamp, wilt thou answer?" cried Cinq-Mars.
"Help, Henri, my dear boy!" exclaimed the voice of the Abbe Quillet.
"Whence come you? You endanger me," said the grand ecuyer, approaching him.
But he saw that his poor tutor, without a hat in the falling snow, was in a most deplorable condition.
"They stopped me, and they robbed me," he cried. "The villains, the assassins! they prevented me from calling out; they stopped my mouth with a handkerchief."
At this noise, Grandchamp at length came, rubbing his eyes, like one just awakened. Laure, terrified, ran into the church to her mistress; all hastily followed her to reassure Marie, and then surrounded the old Abbe.
"The villains! they bound my hands, as you see. There were more than twenty of them; they took from me the key of the side door of the church."
"How! just now?" said Cinq-Mars; "and why did you quit us?"
"Quit you! why, they have kept me there two hours."