"Ma foi, madame, there is little sunshine at half-past eleven o'clock at night. I can't help that. Madame will please to come with us."
Two men by this time had appeared close at hand; and Madame Le Prun, who much preferred one of the King's prisons to that in which her husband was absolute, accompanied her captors with a far better grace than under other circumstances she would have done.
Distant a few score steps, upon a sort of grass-grown road, which traversed the park, stood the equipage which we have already described; and in a few seconds Lucille found herself seated beside the red cloak and mighty moustache, that held her in durance, jolting and rolling at a rapid pace along the moonlit scenery of the park.
"Where am I going?—to the Bastile?" asked Lucille, when a few minutes had a little recovered her from the stun and confusion of this adventure.
"Hum!—why, no, madame—not the Bastile; you are going to a convent."
"A convent!—how strange! What convent?"
"That of the Sisters of Love and Our Lady of the Sparkling Eyes—an ancient foundation of royalty in the city."
"I dare say; I never heard of it before;" and Lucille sank into profound silence.
After a considerable interval, she asked, with a tremulousness she in vain tried to conceal—
"There were some friends who were to have arranged my departure from the place where you arrested me to-night—did you see them?"