He could have bitten his own tongue out a moment later, for at his words, especially the last one, De Chevagny started, and then muttered, "The dead--the dead. Ah! it is the dead who never come back to us. They are gone. All are gone! When shall we meet again? Never, never, never!"
As though in answer to that question which his own weary heart had answered for itself, a door was heard to open in the front of the house--it creaked wofully on its hinges--and then steps were also heard upon the stones of the courtyard, the steps of someone in sabots, and next the key was turned in the rusty lock and one half of the great gate pulled back; following upon which, a woman of about forty years of age appeared at the doorway, and, after regarding the fiacre and the young man with the old one now leaning so heavily on his arm, asked them what they desired.
"To come into my own house," said the latter, looking at her, though he could see at once that she had been born since he last stood upon that spot. "I am the Marquis de Chevagny."
She was not an uncomely-looking woman, neither did she appear hard nor severe; still she answered, with a look of suspicion in her face:
"There is no Marquis de Chevagny. The title exists no longer."
"Yet," said the old man feebly, "I am he. This is my house. Woman, I have but left the Bastille an hour ago. I have been a prisoner there for forty-five years."
She took a step backward, as though to regard him more particularly, while her brow wrinkled a little and her colour came and went, as she exclaimed, "My God, it is not possible!"
"It is true," he said. "I pray you let me enter. I am very old and feeble--older than even I should be by my years--and--and this is my house. Do not refuse me!"
"Enter," the woman said, pulling wider open the door. "And this--monsieur," glancing at Bertie, "who is he?"
"I also have been a prisoner in the Bastille, though for only a short space of time in comparison with his. I beseech you," he said, sinking his voice to a whisper, "answer him very gently--especially when he asks you of--of his family."