sight had caused me. Wonder whither we were going took its
place. To Bezers' house? My heart sank at the prospect if that
were so. Before I thought of an alternative, a gateway flanked
by huge round towers appeared before us, and we pulled up
suddenly, a confused jostling mass in the narrow way; while some
words passed between the Vidame and the Captain of the Guard. A
pause of several minutes followed; and then the gates rolled
slowly open, and two by two we passed under the arch. Those
gates might have belonged to a fortress or a prison, a dungeon or
a palace, for all I knew.

They led, however, to none of these, but to an open space, dirty
and littered with rubbish, marked by a hundred ruts and tracks,
and fringed with disorderly cabins and make-shift booths. And
beyond this--oh, ye gods! the joy of it--beyond this, which we
crossed at a rapid trot, lay the open country!

The transition and relief were so wonderful that I shall never
forget them. I gazed on the wide landscape before me, lying
quiet and peaceful in the sunlight, and could scarce believe in
my happiness. I drew the fresh air into my lungs, I threw up my
sheathed sword and caught it again in a frenzy of delight, while
the gloomy men about me smiled at my enthusiasm. I felt the
horse beneath me move once more like a thing of life. No
enchanter with his wand, not Merlin nor Virgil, could have made a
greater change in my world, than had the captain of the gate with
his simple key! Or so it seemed to me in the first moments of
freedom, and escape--of removal from those loathsome streets.

I looked back at Paris--at the cloud of smoke which hung over the