“I shall go out into the halls and call for Henri, and if I do not find him, I shall go to the cellars for some wood. Stay here by the little bit of fire that is left. I shall only be gone a few minutes,” Lisle said to Rosanne, and leaving her he went out into the great marble hall. He went over to the entrance door and, opening it, looked out at the fast falling snow. As he did so, he thought he saw something dark in the shadow of one of the lower doors, but when he peered again through the darkness and the sleet, there was nothing.
He closed the door and walked down the hall. He could hear Rosanne singing to herself in the drawing-room:
“La petite Jeannette avait un poupée mignonne,
Tra la la la, Tra la la la,
Elle chantait pour elle une joli chanson,
Tra la la la, Tra la la la.”
He called “Henri,” but there was no reply, and so he walked on down the hall, through a long corridor as Marie Josephine had done when she had gone to the secret cellar. He turned a corner, went down another corridor, opened a door, and descended a steep flight of stairs. He knew that they must have wood to last them until Henri should come in with their supper. He saw that the small door at the end of the cellar that led to the basement was open, a blast of cold wind drifting in. He stooped and picked up as much wood as he could carry. Then he stood up, holding the sticks against the dark velvet of his tunic. At that moment some one caught him firmly about the waist. The wood fell with a thump to the stone floor as his arms were tied quickly and skillfully behind him. He was lifted across some one’s shoulders, and a moment later felt the rush of cold wind in his face. Then his captor began to run with him, swiftly, through the fast falling snow!
Chapter XI
“THA MUST NOT CRY OUT, LASS”
Humphrey Trail called himself all sorts of names as he stood in the shadow near the side entrance to the Saint Frère house that night. The sleet was changing into snow which gave no evidence of abating. Humphrey tied his scarf closer about his throat and shifted from one fat leg to the other. What a goose he was to come every evening and stand in the shadow of such a gloomy, proud-looking house just because he was interested in being of service to the proud boy who lived within it, and who, perhaps, did not care a ha’penny whether he stood there in the sleet and wind or not!