Then I mounted on Marie's shoulders, and climbed--not without quavering--through the window, taking as little time over it as possible, for a bell was already proclaiming midnight.
All this I had done on the spur of the moment.

But outside, hanging by my hands in the darkness, the strokes of the great bell in my ears, I had a moment in which to think.

The sense of the vibrating depth below me, the airiness, the space and gloom around, frightened me.

"Are you ready ?" muttered Marie, perhaps with a little impatience.

He had not a scrap of imagination, had Marie.
"No! wait a minute!" I blurted out, clinging to the sill, and taking a last look at the bare room, and the two dark figures between me and the light.