"For that never fear! I guarantee that!"
"So be it. Then, first--since that counts not--I may be seen ere I reach the roof by someone on the look out--'tis not very like, yet it may be so. Whereon I shall be shot like a sparrow, and die hanging 'twixt earth and heaven. Or, let me reach the roof, and be hacked to death, or hurled to the paved court below. Is not all possible?"
For answer Laurent shuddered. "Mon Dieu!" he muttered, "your nerve is iron."
"On the other hand, allow I gain the roof and find all barred--trapdoor or ladder--or discover no entrance that way I must then come back and try elsewhere, another time. But, presuming I can gain the entrance--what then? I have to reach the lady, silence her fear at sight of me--poor soul! doubtless she will think at first I am her doomsman--persuade her to come away with me, force her to pass across the chasm. 'Twill terrify her, yet--it is the only way. We can never escape below--specially if the hound happens by any chance to be still alive!--I must fasten her to the rope, let her swing across, while you from the other side will draw her up. Then the rope can be thrown back to me; why should we fail? Fail, bah we will, we must succeed. Say, have I not thought of all?"
"In truth you have," Laurent exclaimed, and, catching some of Andrew's spirit, he answered, "We will succeed."
* * * * * *
The night came--dark as pitch, with, above, dense clouds rolling so low that they swept the tops of the fir trees on the summit; covered, indeed, that summit so that Gaspard's cabin was enveloped in the dank, reeking mist. And, through that mist, Andrew and Laurent were descending to where was the ledge of the stone-facing to the slope that backed up the mansion of Bois-le-Vaux.
As far as was possible, every arrangement had been made for removing the woman, known to Andrew as Marion Wyatt, to a place of safety directly she was out of the house, it being deemed by him not necessary that, at first, she should be taken farther than Remiremont itself, or, at most, Plombières. For, once beyond Bois-le-Vaux and with him to protect her, Andrew shrewdly suspected that the Vicomte would make no further attempt upon her liberty, since to do so he would once more find himself opposed to his sword, of which--maître d'escrime as he almost was--De Bois-Vallée must now have learnt to have a wholesome respect. And, as for summoning any authority there might be in the neighbourhood to his assistance--that was not to be imagined. Even though he should be able to show some kind of right to retain the lady, none in that place would be likely to lend assistance to one so cordially detested as he was, both because of his family and of the manner in which he had broken with all the traditions of the province in espousing the cause of France instead of--as most others had done--contenting himself with remaining lukewarm, if not inclined to join the Duke.
No! there was no danger once outside the house. It all lay inside!
They reached the hut where the wood was stored by the peasants when cut into billets, ere being sent down to the mansions and towns that lay around the western side of the Vosges, and, furnishing themselves with the thirty metres of good new rope which Laurent had purchased by Andrew's orders--rope two inches in circumference and strong enough to bear the strain of four men of even his bulk--they set forth again on the descent. Also, Andrew took with him a small lantern and a tinder-box, since he knew not what impenetrable darkness might bar his way towards the room of the woman he sought, when inside the house.