"The Vidame is anxious for his soul's welfare, and sends a priest to him." They sprang to their feet at that.

But the light and its bearer, who so far recovered himself as to chuckle at his master's pious thought, had disappeared.

They were left to pace the room, and reproach themselves and curse the Vidame in an agony of late repentance.

Not even Marie could find a loop-hole of escape from here.

The door was double-locked; the windows so barred that a cat could scarcely pass through them; the walls were of solid masonry.
Meanwhile I lay and feigned to sleep, and lay feigning through long, long hours; though my heart like theirs throbbed in response to the dull hammering that presently began without, and not far from us, and lasted until daybreak.