We passed through corridor after corridor, row after row of heavy-barred doors. The deeper we penetrated the mighty pile, the fonder I grew of my friend Mayenne, by whose complaisance none of these doors would shut on me. We climbed at last a steep turret stair winding about a huge fir trunk, lighted by slits of windows in the four-foot wall, and at the top turned down a dark passage to a door at the end, the bolts of which, invisible to me in the gloom, the veteran drew back with familiar hand.
The cell was small, with one high window through which I could see naught but the sky. For all furniture it contained a pallet, a stool, a bench that might serve as table. M. Étienne stood at the window, his arm crooked around the iron bars, gazing out over the roofs of Paris.
He wheeled about at the door's creaking.
"I go to trial, monsieur?" he asked quickly, not seeing me behind the keeper.
"No, M. le Comte. The charge is cancelled. I come to set you free."
I dashed in past the officer, snatching my lord's hand to kiss.
"It's true, monsieur! You're free! It's all settled with Mayenne. Monsieur's seen him; he sets you free. He said, 'In recognizance of Wednesday night.'"
Incredulous joy flashed over his face, to give way to belief without joy.
"Now I know she's married."
"Nothing of the sort!" I fairly shouted at him, dancing up and down in my eagerness. "She's to marry M. le Comte. She's at St. Denis with Monsieur. She's to marry you. It's all arranged. Mayenne consents—the king—everybody. It's all settled. She marries you."