"There may be, yet it seems unlikely. For, see. Even though there were some opening, some descent--'tis possible--I searched not the leads as carefully as afterwards I searched the garret floor!--to where would it lead him? Back into that burning house again."
"And the shaft?"
"Ay! the shaft. The oubliette. 'Tis in truth there, I do believe, that he escaped."
"Yet you have said you probed it as far as you were able, flung down the link of chain to test its depth, and found nothing. How, therefore, is it likely that he can have escaped by that road?"
"That, I purpose to once more seek out. At best my examination was but hasty. A second search may reveal more."
"A second search. You intend to make one? In that ruined house--the walls likely enough to fall at any moment and overwhelm you, bury you beneath them. You will do that?"
"I will--and ere many hours are passed. To-morrow, when--she--has been laid in her grave I make my way to Bois-le-Vaux again. And," he continued--speaking now in a tone that, almost unknowingly to Debrasques, carried conviction to his mind, "the clue will be there to his whereabouts. The end will not be far off then."
"Let us go together."
"You wish to go? Remember, it is not the end itself--but the beginning of the end only. If he has escaped down that oubliette it may be that he is a hundred leagues away ere now, that I may have far to go ere I come up with him. Your road lies towards Paris and your mother's house, Valentin--mine leads I know not where."
"No matter. At least let me accompany you to Bois-le-Vaux."