"'This is the only room that is open: I am sorry. Wait a moment: I will bring something to make a pillow, and you can sleep like a top.' He went out, and returned with an old coat, which he folded for me, and which, after covering it with my handkerchief, made a tolerable resting-place for my head. My bed was a hard bench.
"'Now,' said my protector in a tone of much satisfaction—'now, you will be well. Voilà un bon gîte! Both these other doors are fastened, and this one you can lock after me. Very early I will come and take you part of the way back, and by daylight you can easily find the rest yourself. Bonne nuit, mademoiselle: dormez bien.' He went to the door, and taking the key from the outside put it inside. It would not turn. The lock had been made to work with two keys, and the other was absent.
"'I will tell you what I will do,' said my friend, not in the least discomfited: 'I will lock the door and take the key with me. I must go up the road about two miles on my beat, but you can feel quite safe: no one can get in while I am gone. There is another watchman on the road: he might come while I am away, and—and raise a row. It is best to lock you up.' He nodded his head with great complacency at his good management, and prepared to leave me. I could suggest nothing better. I was at the end of my resources, and had to accept my fate. It would be interesting to know what the Pompadour or Queen Elizabeth would have done under the circumstances, wouldn't it?
"It was with no pleasant feeling that I saw the door shut, heard the key turned, then withdrawn: the lantern glimmered for a moment through the window, and I was left in the darkness a prisoner. Thoroughly a prisoner, for none of the three doors had keys on my side, and the windows, with their tiny panes of ground glass, were high above the floor. Then, too, the old man had insisted on speaking in a whisper, and walked about on tiptoe. Who were those persons he evidently feared to waken? Persons near by, of course. Probably they carried the missing keys and could enter at any moment. And the other watchman? What if he should come, and, this being the room allotted to himself and companion, refuse to be barred out? Those other unknowns would be aroused by his knocking, and rush in to seek an explanation. If I were found there, should I be taken before the police as a vagabond? Or imagine a fire—a fire and no one knowing that I am here! A fire and no means of escape! My friends losing all trace of me, unable to ascertain how I came by my death! And such a horrible death! Four hours yet till dawn! What might not happen in four hours? The man himself might only have gone to seek an accomplice to murder me. He might have known that the key would not turn on the inside. But at last, in spite of myself, fatigue conquered fear and I slept.
"I cannot say how long I had been unconscious when I was awakened by hearing a key turning in the lock: the door cautiously opened, and a man entered and came toward the bench where I was lying. My drowsiness calmed me. I wondered quite placidly whether it was to be robbery or murder. What a paragraph it would make in the Moniteur next day! I would cheerfully give him my watch and purse if they would content him. I might call out and rouse the house, but most likely Brunhilda in my situation would have held a parley. A good precedent. I sat up to show that I was awake, and in doing so recognized my old man. Though nothing could look more threatening as he stealthily advanced, shading his light, taking pains to make no noise, I could not entirely mistrust the weatherbeaten face with its anxious, benevolent eyes that met mine.
"'Is it time to go?' I asked.
"'Not yet, but soon. I have just returned, and came in to know if you would have a fire: it is cold outside.'
"'No, never mind: I am doing well enough. I think I will take another nap.'
"'Very well: I shall be near for the rest of the night, so you need not be afraid.' And he left, carefully locking me in again.
"When he came for me the dawn was beginning to break; the morning star was shining in the sky; the earliest birds were twittering, and cocks answered each other from distance to distance; but not a human being was to be seen. We crossed ploughed fields and stubble to find the road, and I felt the truth of my guide's augury of the night before. Had I attempted to go alone I should have become bewildered, and ended by sleeping in the fields. It did strike me that if the man wished to rob me, now would be his chance, and at first I intentionally kept a little behind; but his innocent garrulity was such as to allay all suspicions, and we jogged on very amicably until, coming to two roads, he pointed out that which leads to Creil, and bade me good-bye.