The Marquis, however, qualified the suggestion. "A masque! that is very good; but, for this morning—I have been talking with the commandant—and have another proposal—"
"Which is?"
"To visit the dungeons."
"The dungeons?" My lady's face changed.
"And incidentally inspect their latest guest! Some of you heard of him when we were here before—Le Seigneur Noir—the Black Seigneur!"
"Le Seigneur Noir!" They clapped their hands. "Yes, let us see him! Nothing could be better. What do you say, Elise?"
She started to speak, but for the instant her lips could frame no answer; with a faint, strained smile, confronted them, when some one anticipated her reply—
"Did she not leave it to us? It is we who decide."
And a merry party, they swept along, bearing her with them; up the broad stairway, cold, gray in the morn; beneath the abbot's bridge—black, spying span!—to the church, and thence to the isolated space before the guard-house to the dungeons. Here, at the sound of their voices, a man, carrying a bunch of keys—but outwardly the antithesis to the hunchback—peered from the entrance.
"Unless I am mistaken, the new jailer!" With a wave of his hand, the Marquis indicated this person. "The commandant was telling me his Excellency had engaged one—from Bicêtre, or Fort l'Evêque, I believe?"