There was no one in front of the entrance, though at all the doors marked with a white cross the soldiers were hammering with the butts of their arquebuses. They slipped in, pushed the bars across, ran upstairs and made their way on to the roof, and climbed along it until they reached the window of the house in which De Valecourt lodged; felt their way across the room till they discovered the door, issued out and, as soon as they found the staircase, ran down.
Already there was a turmoil below. A light streamed out from a door of the count's apartments on the first floor. Philip ran in. Claire de Valecourt was standing with one hand resting on the table, deadly pale, but quiet. She was fully dressed.
"Where is your father?" Philip exclaimed.
"He has gone down with the servants to hold the stairs."
"I will join him," Philip said. "Pierre will take care of you. He knows what to do. We will follow you. Quick, for your own sake and your father's."
"I cannot go and leave him."
"You will do him no good by staying, and delay may cost us all our lives. You must go at once. If you do not, at the risk of your displeasure, I must carry you."
"I will go," she said. "You saved me before, and I trust you."
"Trust Pierre as you would trust me," he said.
"Now, Pierre, take her hand and hurry her upstairs."