They were standing on the graceful stone passageway that joins the two towers at the height of the bells and were looking to the west over the columned balustrade, over the Place Notre-Dame, dotted with queer little people, tinkling with bells of cab horses, clanging with gongs of yonder trolley cars curving from the Pont Neuf past old Charlemagne astride of his great bronze horse. Then on along the tree-lined river, on with widening view of towers and domes until their eyes rested on the green spreading bois and the distant heights of Saint Cloud.
And straightway Alice began to point out familiar monuments, the spire of the Sainte Chapelle, the square of the Louvre, the gilded dome of Napoleon's tomb, the crumbling Tour Saint Jacques, disfigured now with scaffolding for repairs, and the Sacré Cour, shining resplendent on the Montmartre hill.
To all of which the lady listened indifferently. She was plainly thinking of something else, and, furtively, she was watching the girl.
"Tell me," she asked abruptly, "is your name Alice?"
"Yes," answered the other in surprise.
The lady hesitated. "I thought that was what the old woman called you." Then, looking restlessly over the panorama: "Where is the conciergerie?"
Alice started at the word. Among all the points in Paris this was the one toward which her thoughts were tending, the conciergerie, the grim prison where her lover was!
"It is there," she replied, struggling with her emotion, "behind that cupola of the Chamber of Commerce. Do you see those short pointed towers? That is it."
"Is it still used as a prison?" continued the visitor with a strange insistence.
"Why, yes," stammered the girl, "I think so—that is, the depot is part of the conciergerie or just adjoins it."