"Yes, Madeleine Ferrand."
"Perhaps I also remind you of her brother, a shy schoolboy who used often to visit the parlour at the convent and who used to look at you from a distance."
"Yes, yes," she declared. "I remember. We even spoke to each other sometimes; you used to blush. Yes, that's it: your name was Stéphane. But how do you come to be called Maroux?"
"Madeleine and I were not children of the same father."
"Ah," she said, "that was what misled me!"
She gave him her hand:
"Well, Stéphane," she said, "as we are old friends and have renewed our acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. For the moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. Have you the strength?"
"The strength, yes: I have not had such a very bad time. But how are we to go from here?"
"By the same road by which I came, a ladder communicating with the upper passage of cells."
He was now standing up: