"We have not much time.
Come!"
He motioned to the physician to pass along the corridor and to enter
the room, while he bolted and locked the outer door. As the doctor
entered, Mistress Simon lay upon her bed and looked at the new-comer
with curious, glowing eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked, rising quickly from her bed. "You are not
Doctor Naudin whom I expected, and I do not know you!"
Meantime the doctor walked in silence to her bed, and stooped over
Jeanne Marie, who sank back upon the pillow.
"I am the one who is to help you escape from the Temple," he
whispered. "Doctor Naudin has sent me, to work in union with him and
you in effecting your release and that of the unfortunate Capet."
"Husband," cried Jeanne Marie to the cobbler, who was just coming
in, "this is the man who is going to deliver us from this hell!"
"That is to say," said the doctor, with a firm, penetrating voice,
"I will free you if you will help me free the dauphin."
"Speak softly, for God's sake, speak softly," said Simon anxiously.
"If any one should hear you, we are all lost! We will do every thing
that you demand of us, provided that we can in that way escape from
this miserable, good-for-nothing place. The air here is like poison,
and to have to stay here is like being buried alive."
"And then the dreams, the frightful dreams," muttered Jeanne Marie,
with a shudder.
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