plan.'
'I thought it seemed too doubtful myself,' Harry said. 'Of course, if I knew that they would send me to La Force, I might risk it. I could hide a file and a steel saw about me, and might cut through the bars; but, as you say, there is no reason why they should send me there rather than anywhere else. I would kill that villain who arrested her—the scoundrel, after being a guest at the chateau! — but I don't see that would do your sister any good, and would probably end in my being shut up. The most hopeful plan seems to me to try and bribe some of the warders. Some of them, no doubt, would be glad enough to take money if they could see their way to letting her out without fear of detection.'
'But you know we thought of that before, Harry, and agreed it would be a terrible risk to try it, for the very first man you spoke to might turn round on you.'
'Of course there is a certain risk, Jeanne, anyway. There is no getting a prisoner out of La Force without running some sort of risk; the thing is to fix on as safe a plan as we can. However, we must think it out well before we do try. A failure would be fatal, and I do not think there is any pressing danger just at present. It is hardly likely there will be any repetition of the wholesale work of the 2nd of September; and if they have anything like a trial of the prisoners, there are such numbers of them, so many arrested every day, that it may be a long time before they come to your sister. I do not mean that we should trust to that, only that there is time for us to make our plans properly. Have you thought of anything?'
'I have thought of all sort of things since you left us this morning, Harry, but they are like yours, just vague sort of schemes that do not seem possible when you try to work them out. I do not know whether they let you inside the prisons to sell everything to the prisoners, because if they did I might go in with something and see Marie, and find out how she could be got out.'
Harry shook his head.
'I do not think anyone would be allowed in like that, but if they did it would only be a few to whom the privilege would be granted.'
'Yes, I thought of that, Harry; but one of them might be bribed perhaps to let me take her place.'
'It might be possible,' Harry said, 'but there would be a terrible risk, and I don't think any advantage to compensate for it. Even if you did get to her and spoke to her, we should still be no nearer to getting her out. Still we mustn't be disheartened. We can hardly expect to hit upon a scheme at once, and I don't think either of our heads is very clear to-day; let us think it over quietly, and perhaps some other idea may occur to one of us, I expect it will be to you. Now, good-night; keep your courage up. I rely very much upon you, Jeanne, and you don't know what a comfort it is to me that you are calm and brave, and that I can talk things over to you. I don't know what I should do if I had it all on my own shoulders.'
Jeanne made no answer, but her eyes were full of tears as she put her hands into Harry's, and no sound came from her lips in answer to his good-night.
'That girl's a trump, and no mistake,' Harry said to himself as he descended the stairs. 'She has got more pluck than most women, and is as cool and calm as if she were twice her age. Most girls would be quite knocked over if they were in her place. Her father and mother murdered, her sister in the hands of these wretches, and danger hanging over herself and Virginie! It isn't that she doesn't feel it. I can see she does, quite as much, if not more, than people who would sit down and howl and wring their hands. She is a trump, Jeanne is, and no mistake. And now about Marie. She must be got out somehow, but how? That is the question. I really don't see any possible way except by bribing her guards, and I haven't the least idea how to set about that. I think to-morrow I will tell Jacques and his wife all about it; they may know some of these men, though it isn't likely that they do; anyhow, three heads are better than one.'
Accordingly, next morning he took the kind-hearted couple into his counsel. When they heard that the young lady who had been arrested was the fiance of their sick lodger they were greatly interested, but they shook their heads when he told them that he was determined at all hazards to get her out of prison.
'It isn't the risk so much,' Jacques said, 'that I look at. Life doesn't seem of much account in these days; but how could it be done? Even if you made up your mind to be killed, I don't see that would put her a bit nearer to getting out of prison; the place is too strong to break into or to break out of.'
'No, I don't think it is possible to succeed in that sort of way; but if the men who have the keys of the corridors could be bribed, and the guard at the gate put soundly to sleep by drugging their drink, it might be managed.'
Jacques looked sharply at Harry to see if he was in earnest, and seeing that he was so, said drily:
'Yes, if we could do those things we should, no doubt, see our way; but how could it be managed?'
'That is just the point, Jacques. In the first place it will be necessary to find out in which corridor Mademoiselle de St. Caux is confined; in the second, to let her know that we are working for her, and to learn, if possible, from her whether, among those in charge of her, there is one man who shows some sort of feeling of pity and kindness; when that is done we should, of course, try to get hold of him. Of course he doesn't remain in the prison all day. However, we can see about that after we have found out the first points.'
'I know a woman who is sister to one of the warders,' Elise Medart said. 'I don't know whether he is there now or whether he has been turned out. Martha is a good soul, and I know that sometimes she has been inside the prison, I suppose to see her brother, for before the troubles the warders used to get out only once a month. What her brother is like I don't know, but if he is like her he would, I think, be just the man to help you.'
'Yes,' Jacques assented, 'I didn't think of Martha. She is a good soul and would do her best, I am sure.'
'Thank you both,' Harry said; 'but I do not wish you to run any risks. You have already incurred the greatest danger by sheltering my friend; I cannot let you hazard your lives farther. This woman may, as you say, be ready to help us, but her brother might betray the whole of us, and screen his sister by saying she had only pretended to enter into the plot in order to betray it.'
'We all risk our lives every day,' Jacques said quietly. 'I am sure we can trust Martha, and she will know whether she can rely completely upon her brother. If she can, we will set her to sound him. Elise will go and see her to-day, and you shall know what she thinks of it when you come this evening for your night's watching.'
Greatly pleased with this unexpected stroke of luck, Harry went off at once to tell Jeanne that the outline of a plan to rescue Marie had been fixed upon.
The girl's pale face brightened up at the news.
'Perhaps,' she said, 'we may be able to send a letter to her. I should like to send her just a line to say that Virginie and I are well. Do you think it can be done?'
'I do not know, Jeanne. At any rate you can rely that, if it is possible and all goes well, she shall have it; but be sure and give no clue by which they might find you out, if the letter falls into wrong hands. Tell her we are working to get her free, and ask if she can suggest any way of escape; knowing the place she may see opportunities of which we know nothing. Write it very small, only on a tiny piece of paper, so that a man can hide it anwhere, slip it into her hand, or put it in her ration of bread.'
Jeanne wrote the little note—a few loving words, and the message Harry had given her.
'Do not sign your name to it,' Harry said; 'she will know well enough who it comes from, and it is better in case it should fall into anyone else's hands.'
That evening Harry learned that the woman had consented to sound her brother, who was still employed in the prison. She had said she was sure that he would not betray her even if he refused to aid in the plan.
'I am to see her to-morrow morning,' Elise said. 'She will go straight from me to the prison. She says discipline is not nearly so strict as it used to be. There is a very close watch kept over the prisoners, but friends of the guards can go in and out without trouble, except that on leaving they have to be accompanied by the guard at the door, so as to be sure that no one is passing out in disguise. She says her brother is good-natured but very fond of money. He is always talking of retiring and settling down in a farm in Brittany, where he comes from, and she thinks that if he thought he could gain enough to do this he would be ready to run some risk, for he hates the terrible things that are being done now.'
'He seems just the man for us,' Harry said. 'Will you tell your friend, when you see her in the morning, that I will give her twenty louis and her brother a hundred if he can succeed in getting Marie out?'
'I will tell them, sir. That offer will set his wits to work, I have no doubt.'
Harry then gave her the note Jeanne had written, for the woman to hand to her brother for delivery if he proved willing to enter into their plan. Harry had a quiet night of watching, for Victor lay so still that his friend several times leant over him to see if he breathed. The doctor had looked in late and said that the crisis was at
