"He was my friend; he fought Remond to save me," she murmured; "and shall I desert him in the danger he incurred for my sake? Never, never! not if to find him I have to venture back into the spider's den, into madame's presence again."
Day waned and faded, and the soft chiming of the vesper bells rang out the hour of her release. Pale and watchful, she knelt among the nuns and the pupils in the chapel, but ere the Aves and the Pater Nosters were over, she had flitted like a shadow from the cloister, and in "the dim, religious light" made her way into the garden, having first secured her hat and cloak from a convenient rack. Breathless she made her hurried way through the thick, dark shrubberies, praying now that Heaven would aid her to escape from the half-insane old priest.
"Where there's a will there's a way." Desperation had made her bold and reckless. But one means of escape presented itself, and that was to scale the high stone wall with the bristling spikes on top. By the aid of convenient shrubberies she accomplished the feat, and, with bleeding hands and torn garments, dropped down upon the other side into the street.
Fortunately, no one was passing, so her escape remained unnoticed. Panting for breath, in her eagerness she ran the length of a square and turned down a corner, losing herself in a labyrinth of streets. She knew not where she was; but that did not matter yet. She was only intent on putting the greatest possible distance between herself and the convent where she had been so nearly immured for life.
After an hour's rapid walking through a locality of which she was totally ignorant, she came suddenly into a street with which she was familiar. From this she knew that she could make her way without difficulty to Mme. Lorraine's house.
A sudden terror and reluctance seized upon her at thought of entering that house of danger, and unconsciously her footsteps slackened their headlong speed.
"To go back into the lion's den—it is hard!" she thought; then, bravely, "But my friend risked his life for me. I can not do less for him."
[CHAPTER XVII.]
Weary and footsore, she toiled on toward Esplanade Street, that was still far away.