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There before him was the wooden box, with its guichet open at last, and two stands upon its ledge, on which were placed two huge leather-bound books. Though Armand was nearly an hour before the appointed time, he saw when he arrived a number of people standing round the guichet.
The sister, an aged woman, obeyed with tottering steps, and, reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and asked with a quavering voice: "Who are you that knock?" while the nuns within held their breath and strained their ears to catch the answer. Presently it came, in a woman's silvery tones, that sounded strangely still and small in the spaces of that tomb-like church.
"I'm very well content with two thousand francs," said Andrew. "It's something against a rainy day." They reached the guichet and Andrew drew his money. "Suppose the impossible animal hadn't won you would have been rather sick." "No," Andrew replied, after a moment's thought. "I should have regarded my louis as a tribute to the memory of one who did me a great service."
Even if he could have suspected that her husband was still living, there was nothing in the world to connect him with this escaped convict. No wonder Uncle Mo's complete unconsciousness seemed to present an impassable barrier to a revelation. Aunt M'riar had not the advantages of the Roman confessional, with its suggestive guichet.
"That man's head takes a deal of cutting off, mon ami," he said. "Aren't you tired of playing executioner so long?" "Not I, M'sieur! It's all the same to me executioner or victim, saint or devil." Müller, laughing, offered him a cigar. "You've posed for some queer characters in your time, Guichet," said he. "Parbleu, M'sieur!" "But you've not been a model all your life?" "Perhaps not, M'sieur."
I remember the day he came in, and the look in his face when the hot iron hissed into his flesh! They roar like bulls, for the most part; but he never flinched or spoke. He just turned a shade paler under the tan, and that was all." "Do you remember what his crime was?" asked Müller Guichet shook his head. "Not distinctly," he said.
At last still in the wake of Heron he found himself once more behind the main entrance gate, underneath the archway on which gave the guichet of the concierge. Here, too, there seemed to be an unnecessary number of soldiers: two were doing sentinel outside the guichet, but there were others in a file against the wall.
It was quite dark in the passage where the long queue continued to swell with amazing rapidity. Only on the ledge in front of the guichet there was a guttering tallow candle at the disposal of the inquirers. Now it was Armand's turn at last. By this time his heart was beating so strongly and so rapidly that he could not have trusted himself to speak.
"Or by stripping his shirt off his back, and showing the brand on his left shoulder," said Guichet. "There you'll find it, T.F. as large as life and if it don't show at first, just you hit him a sharp blow with the flat of your hand, M'sieur Müller, and it will start out as red and fresh as if it had been done only six months ago. Parbleu!
I shall weary you with theories, and wear out the patience of our friend Guichet, who is sufficiently tired already with waiting for a head that never comes to be cut off as it ought. Adieu adieu. Come soon again, and see how I get on with Marshal Romero." Thus dismissed, we took our leave and left the painter to his work.
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