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Updated: May 1, 2025
She eyed the young man sternly but said nothing, for Alice was at her back holding the lamp and there was something in the American's face, something half reckless, half appealing, that startled her. She felt the cold breath of a sinister happening and regretted Bonneton's absence at the church. "Well, I'm here," said Kittredge with a queer little smile.
You know, M. Coquenil is a friend of Papa Bonneton's; he lends him his dog Caesar to guard the church." "It seems like providence," murmured the lady. "Yes, that is the thing to do, you must go to M. Coquenil at once. Tell the old sacristan I have sent you on an errand for another twenty francs." Alice smiled faintly. "I can manage that. But what shall I say to M. Paul?"
"Five francs is quite enough," replied Alice, to Mother Bonneton's great disgust. "I love the towers on a day like this." So they started up the winding stone stairs of the Northern tower, the lady going first with lithe, nervous steps, although Alice counseled her not to hurry. "It's a long way to the top," cautioned the girl, "three hundred and seventy steps."
He hesitated a moment and then, before the power of her eyes: "I'll surely come," he promised, and a moment later he was gone. Then the hours passed, anxious, ominous hours! Ten, eleven, twelve! And still Alice waited for her lover, silencing Mother Bonneton's grumblings with a look that this hard old woman had once or twice seen in the girl's face and had learned to respect.
Indeed, M. Paul himself remembered the young man's quick, springy step when he left the cab that fatal night to enter Bonneton's house.
"Taken!" said Tignol, and then, with sudden gravity: "But if this is true, things are getting serious, eh?" "They've been serious." "I mean the chase is nearly over?" M. Paul answered slowly, as if weighing his words: "This man is desperate and full of resources, I know that, but, with the precautions I have taken, I don't see how he can escape if he goes to Bonneton's house to-morrow."
I'll be the best assistant you ever had and I shall enjoy Mother Bonneton's cooking." "You will take your meals with us?" cried the sacristan aghast. "But they all know you." "None of them will know me; you won't know me yourself." "Ah, I see," nodded the old man wisely. "You will have a disguise. But my wife has sharp eyes."
More than that, he seemed in excellent spirits, and as he sat down to Mother Bonneton's modest luncheon he nodded good-naturedly to Matthieu, the substitute watchman, whom the sacristan introduced, not too awkwardly, then he fell to eating with a hearty appetite and without any sign of embarrassment or suspicion.
How the course of events would have been changed had Paul Coquenil remained outside Notre-Dame on this occasion it is impossible to know; the fact is he did not remain outside, but, growing impatient at Bonneton's delay, he pushed open the double swinging doors, with their coverings of leather and red velvet, and entered the sanctuary. And immediately he saw the girl.
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