"They'd break their ghostly necks if they did."
"Come! and let us be careful not to break ours. Allons!"
They stole softly along the adjoining wall that ended at a court. There was clearly no thoroughfare in this direction. Coming back on the trail he examined the stone attentively, she meanwhile shading the light with the folds of her dress. It was comparatively easy to note the recent wear of feet in the time-accumulation of rust and dirt and dry moss of these old stones. In a few moments he discovered that the tracks turned off between two high-pitched roofs towards the Panthéon. As from one of these slopes grinned a double row of dormer-windows, it seemed incredible that any considerable number of prowlers might long escape observation.
"But they may be vacant," said the girl, when Jean had suggested the contingency.
"That is quite true."
So they stealthily crept rather than walked on, the end of the gutter abutting on another court. The depression was marked here by virgin moss.
"It is very extraordinary," growled Jean, entirely at a loss to account for the abrupt close of the trail. There was no way out of this trough save by climbing over one of these steep roofs, except——
"The window, perhaps," she whispered.
"True!"
Rapidly moving the lamp along the bottom of the gutter, Jean stopped.