The sight and smell of the place are turning me sick, although my stomach is strong enough to endure most horrors." She took up one of the candle-branches to light them, and they went below and made their way to the hall, where they found Marius's page, Gaston, looking very pale and scared at the din that had filled the chateau during the past half-hour or so.

With him was Marius's hound, which the poor boy had kept by him for company and protection in that dreadful time.
The Marquise spoke to him kindly, and she stooped to pat the dog's glossy head.

Then she bade Gaston set wine for them, and when it was fetched the three of them drank in brooding, gloomy silence.
The draught invigorated Marius, it cheered Tressan's drooping spirits, and it quenched the Dowager's thirst.

The Seneschal turned to her again with his unanswered questions touching the end of that butchery above-stairs.

She told him what Fortunio had said that Garnache was drowned as a consequence of his mad leap from the window.
Into Tressan's mind there sprang the memory of the thing Garnache had promised should befall him in such a case.