“Well?” he asked with febrile impatience—“the prisoner?”
“He seems better and stronger,” replied Chauvelin.
“Not too well, I hope?”
“No, no, only just well enough.”
“You have seen him—since his supper?”
“Only from the doorway. It seems he ate and drank hardly at all, and the sergeant had some difficulty in keeping him awake until you came.”
“Well, now for the letter,” concluded Heron with the same marked feverishness of manner which sat so curiously on his uncouth personality. “Pen, ink and paper, sergeant!” he commanded.
“On the table, in the prisoner’s cell, citizen,” replied the sergeant.
He preceded the two citizens across the guard-room to the doorway, and raised for them the iron bar, lowering it back after them.
The next moment Heron and Chauvelin were once more face to face with their prisoner.