"Do you not mean to accompany us?" asked the two nuns, affrightedly.
"My place, sisters, is with the martyrs—not with the saved," said the old priest, calmly.
"Hark! the steps on the staircase!—the heavy steps we heard before!" cried the women.
This time it was easy to distinguish, in the midst of the silence of night, the echoing sound of footsteps on the stone stairs. The nuns, as they heard it approach nearer and nearer, forced the priest into a recess at one end of the room, closed the door, and hurriedly heaped some old clothes against it. The moment after, they were startled by three distinct knocks at the outer door.
The person who demanded admittance appeared to interpret the terrified silence which had seized the nuns on hearing his knock, into a signal to enter. He opened the door himself, and the affrighted women immediately recognized him as the man whom they had detected watching the house—the spy who had watched one of them through the streets that night.
The stranger was tall and robust, but there was nothing in his features or general appearance to denote that he was a dangerous man. Without attempting to break the silence, he slowly looked round the room. Two bundles of straw, strewn upon boards, served as a bed for the two nuns. In the centre of the room was a table, on which were placed a copper-candlestick, some plates, three knives, and a loaf of bread. There was but a small fire in the grate, and the scanty supply of wood piled near it, plainly showed the poverty of the inmates. The old walls, which at some distant period had been painted, indicated the miserable state of the roof, by the patches of brown streaked across them by the rain, which had filtered, drop by drop, through the ceiling. A sacred relic, saved probably from the pillage of the convent to which the two nuns and the priest had been attached, was placed on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and an old chest-of-drawers completed the furniture of the apartment.
At one corner near the mantle-shelf, a door had been constructed which indicated that there was a second room in that direction.
An expression of pity appeared on the countenance of the stranger, as his eyes fell on the two nuns, after having surveyed their wretched apartment. He was the first to break the strange silence that had hitherto prevailed, by addressing the two poor creatures before him in such tones of kindness as were best adapted to the nervous terror under which they were evidently suffering.
"Citizens!" he began, "I do not come to you as an enemy." He stopped for a moment, and then continued: "If any misfortune has befallen you, rest assured that I am not the cause of it. My only object here is to ask a great favor of you."
The nuns still kept silence.