"What?" said Maître Delarue, who also appeared deeply impressed. "Do you mean to assert that the Marquis——"
"That the Marquis is awaiting us like a man who is expecting our visit."
"You're raving," growled the notary. "Isn't he, mademoiselle?"
The young men hauled themselves on to the landing formed by the stones which had slipped back. Dorothy joined them. Two electric pocket-lamps took the place of the torch suggested by the Marquis de Beaugreval, and they set about mounting the high steps which wound upwards in a very narrow space.
"Fifteen—sixteen—seventeen," Dario counted.
To hearten himself, Maître Delarue sang the couplets of "da Tour, prende garde." But at the thirtieth step he began to save his breath.
"It's a steep climb, isn't it?" said Dorothy.
"Yes it is. But it's chiefly the idea of paying a visit to a dead man. It makes my legs a bit shaky."
At the fiftieth step a hole in the wall let in some light. Dorothy looked out and saw the woods of La Roche-Périac; but a cornice, jutting out, prevented her from seeing the ground at the foot of the keep.
They continued the ascent. Maître Delarue kept singing in a more and more shaky voice, and towards the end it was rather a groaning than a singing.