***

Hour upon unending hour, days and nights blending into one another with nothing to tell them apart. Hours that were like days, even weeks. Time dragged so slowly, broken for Marianne into periods of tense, anxious waking and heavy sleep from which she would sometimes wake trembling and drenched with sweat from the grip of a nightmare. During all this time, Arcadius's friendship and concern were inexhaustible. He did not spare himself in his efforts to make the invalid take a little food, making her swallow the endless potions and tisanes which he demanded from Requin. Once a day, old Fanchon came to see how matters stood. There was no solicitude or pity in her manner, nothing but the cold calculation of a horse dealer who sees his stock in trade likely to perish.

'She watches over you like a market gardener when the frost is on his lettuces,' Arcadius would say, attempting to laugh. But his laughter quickly died away, unable to withstand the oppressive atmosphere of the cavern. At other times, the prisoner's wants were supplied by Requin who was as gruff and unapproachable as ever. Even if she had possessed any money, Marianne would not have risked trying to bribe him. He served Fanchon-Fleur-de-lis like a dog and was not the kind of watchdog to be won over by a bone.

And yet, little by little, she recovered. The bouts of coughing became further apart, the fever diminished and her cracked voice recovered normal tones. There came a time when Marianne was able to smile at her faithful companion:

'I think I'm better – but for you I am sure that I could never have recovered.'

'You are very young. I have merely helped nature. You would have got over it very well without me.'

She shook her head and looked thoughtful for a moment.

'No,' she murmured. 'Because if you had not been here, I should have had no wish to live.'

For the first time since her capture, she fell into a real sleep of the kind that is more restorative than any medicine on earth. She was dreaming that the black cab was taking her back to a Butard of fantasy, shining like a great star under a dazzling blanket of snow, when an unusual sound made her start up wide awake. She sat up and saw that Arcadius, in his own corner, was also awake and listening. Their eyes met in the gloom.

'What is it?' Marianne whispered.

'It sounded like a fall of rock. Listen! There it is again. It comes from somewhere back in the quarry.'

Jolival had already explained to Marianne that the passage outside their prison cave ended a little further on in a blank wall.

Now they could hear a scratching sound followed by a muffled but unmistakable oath. Arcadius was on his feet in an instant. There was a glimmer of candlelight in the passage, wavering on the chalky walls as it came nearer. By now, Marianne, too, had got nervously to her feet and moved closer to her companion. Someone was coming, beyond a doubt, but who could it be, and where had they come from?

'They must have dug through the wall,' Jolival said in a whisper. 'It's easy enough to pierce the chalk with good tools. But who—'

He did not finish. The light was coming nearer. They heard cautious footsteps, light but real. A shadow loomed up along the wall and, despite herself, Marianne pressed closer to Arcadius. Then, suddenly, she bit back a cry of amazement. Even in the distorting light of the candle he held, she recognized the features and the mop of red hair belonging to Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche, the errand boy who had warned her about the black cab. A sigh of relief escaped her.

'He is a friend,' she said to Jolival.

Gracchus-Hannibal had already spotted the barred recess, illumined faintly by the brazier. He made his way close up to the bars and his anxious face broke into a broad grin.

'So I've found you at last, Mademoiselle Marianne! You've certainly given me a run for it.'

'What? Have you been looking for me? How did you know I had disappeared?'

Her hopes rose suddenly. If the humble Gracchus had had his suspicions, then surely such a remarkable man as Talleyrand could not have failed to have them too.

'Oh, that's easy! The black cab followed you and I followed the black cab. Daytimes, at least. I mostly sleep at night.'

'The devil!' Arcadius broke in. 'You must have a strong pair of legs to follow a cab—'

'They never go very fast in Paris, especially when they are following someone. But it's true, I have got strong legs. Where was I? Oh, – one morning, a week ago, it was, when I went to find the cab, it wasn't there. Nor did I see you go out. That struck me as odd. So I got into conversation with Joris, the porter at the Hôtel Talleyrand. I swept away the snow on the pavement outside, and so we got talking. I went back later to give him a hand and took a bottle with me. There's nothing like a bottle for making a man's tongue wag. In two days I'd become his bosom pal! He told me you'd gone out one night with the prince and not come back. There was even some rumour going about the house that you'd been taken up by someone very grand. But that cab's being gone worried me – especially since I knew where it lived and I'd seen the man who was inside it several times going in and out of a bar called the Iron Man. That didn't seem to fit at all with any tale about a grand person. And so, I started making inquiries.'

'But how did you get here?' Marianne said filled with admiration for the young man's shrewdness.

Gracchus-Hannibal laughed.

'I've known the old quarries a long time. Used to play here as a kid with me pals and had some rare old times before the people from the Iron Man blocked up this gallery which runs into the old crypt of the Visitation. There were a good many hid here during the Terror, as there were in the quarries at Montmartre. But I know them all, like the back of my hand.'

'But this passage is a dead end,' Jolival broke in. 'How did you get into it without going through the crypt? I thought I heard some kind of avalanche.'

'It was a bit like that. Beyond the dead end, the galleries run on for quite a way but the main right bank sewer joins up with them and that runs into the Seine quite close to here. Besides, they're not all that well built. There are cracks and I heard voices last night. That gave me the idea of looking here. I came back with a pickaxe – and here I am! And am I glad to see you still alive, Mam'zelle Marianne! To be quite honest, I'd been none too sure—'

'Why? Do you know these people—?'

Gracchus shrugged and gave Marianne a pitying look.

'The old woman with the fleur-de-lis? Is there anyone in Paris doesn't know her! Or 'aint scared to death of her! I think she frightens even Citizen Fouché! At any rate, he needs to pay his men well enough to show their noses in the rue des Bonshommes after sunset! They don't like going near the Homme-de-Fer either, or its twin in the boulevard du Temple, the Epi-Scié. And those that do, generally vanish without trace. And both those places belong to Desormeaux. Oh, she's a character, all right! A sort of queen of the underworld!'

Marianne had been listening to the boy's words with undisguised fascination but Jolival was beginning to show signs of impatience.

'This is all very well, my lad,' he said at last, 'but I don't suppose you've come all this way just to sing Fanchon's praises? You'd be better employed getting us out of here! I suppose this hole you've dug is big enough to let a young lady through?'

'The hole, yes,' Gracchus said. 'But how am I going to get you out from behind those bars? Those aren't just a little bit of wire! Look at them – thick as a baby's wrist!'

'Look here, my lad, if you don't put a brake on your enthusiasm for our prison and our jailors, I shall personally insert my adult arm between these baby ones and push your face in! Can't you see the young lady is ill and must be got out of here as soon as possible?'

'Oh, don't be hard on him,' Marianne begged. 'I am sure he will find a way.'

'Why would I have taken all this trouble else?' Gracchus-Hannibal replied in a surly voice. 'All the same, there's nothing to be done tonight. It's too late. It can't be far off five o'clock, though it don't feel like it. And I'll have to get hold of some proper tools. A good file might do – unless we try and get out one or two of the bars—'

'Or knock down the wall!' Arcadius scoffed. 'It seems that you're no locksmith. Find me some good locksmith's tools and come back tomorrow night, if you can. You are right, it's too late now.'

Marianne did her best to hide her disappointment. When she saw the boy appear, she had thought that freedom was within her reach, but now they had to wait another whole day. Gracchus-Hannibal was scratching his head under the blue cap.

'Locksmith's tools?' he said. 'Yes, it could be – but where from?'

'Listen,' Marianne said suddenly as an idea occurred to her. 'If you need help, there may be someone who can give it – at least, if he is still in Paris.'

'Tell us, mam'zelle.'

'Go to the Hôtel de l'Empire and ask for Monsieur Jason Beaufort, he is an American. Will you remember that? Jason Beaufort.'

The boy pulled paper and pencil out of his cap. 'Wait a moment,' he said. 'I'll put it down. There – that's it. What shall I tell him?'

'That you come from Marianne – that she needs help. Then tell him where I am.'

'And if he's gone?'

'Then say nothing to anyone,' she said sadly. 'Just come and tell me, that's all.'

'You don't want me to tell them in the rue de Varennes?'

'No! No – not at present. We'll see if M. Beaufort has gone—'

Marianne could not have said what made her call on Beaufort for help. He had wounded her deeply and even now she did not altogether trust him. But he represented her one chance of escaping from the trouble which had dogged her ever since her marriage to Francis Cranmere. Only with Beaufort did the word "escape" bear its full meaning. If she succeeded in escaping with him, when his ship left the coast of France it would break all the chains that bound her. No more Fouché, no more reports, no more Talleyrand with his cunning plots, his brilliant ideas and his subtle diplomacy. Above all, and more than all, she would put an ocean like an impassable barrier between herself and the man she could not help loving. She could have devoted her life to Charles Denis, but what was the love of a mere girl like herself to Napoleon I, Emperor of the French? In a week, less perhaps, he would have forgotten her, might indeed have done so already. By now, all his thoughts would surely have turned to that arch-duchess of Austria he meant to marry. It was better to go away and never see him again rather than risk yielding a second time. And then, over there, she would try and get over it.

To keep her spirits up, she told herself that she would accept from Beaufort only such aid as she was obliged to and that she would try and support herself by singing. There must be theatres in that far away country, and concert halls—

'You mean to go to America?' Jolival's voice spoke quietly beside her.

Marianne came down to earth and saw that Gracchus-Hannibal had gone. From the far end of the passage, came the sound of stones being moved. He must be making a rough attempt to cover the hole by which he had entered.

'I think it is the best thing I can do,' she answered.

'Maybe. You do not wish to see him again?'

'No. It is best for me, and still more for him. I must not see him again at any price.'

'Why?'

The brief question shook Marianne. It forced her to reply as simply, to give the real reason for her longing to escape and it came home to her more sharply as she said it.

'Because I'm afraid,' she said in a low voice.

'You are afraid,' Jolival finished for her calmly, 'because you realize that you love Napoleon as much as Charles Denis, perhaps more. Whatever you may think, a halo of glory never does any harm to one we love – even if our politics are not quite the same. The glory is still there. And – do you think you will forget more easily if you put an ocean between you?'

'I hope so! Someone, I can't remember who, once said that the greatest victory in love was flight.'

Arcadius de Jolival roared with laughter.

'Look no further. He said it. Napoleon has a great belief in the merits of flight where love is concerned. It still remains to be seen whether there is any truth in that pretty phrase. I promise you, he has not often tried it.'