ed: I made for the door. How I descended all the
stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my
course to Madame's sitting-room: I burst in. I said--

"There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw something.
Go and look at it, all of you!"

I said, "All of you;" for the room seemed to me full of people, though
in truth there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame
Kint, who was out of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her
brother, M. Victor Kint, and another gentleman, who, when I entered the
room, was conversing with the old lady, and had his back towards the
door.

My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt cold
and shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me. I
urged them to go to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me good
and gave me courage: it seemed as if there were some help and hope,
with men at hand. I turned to the door, beckoning them to follow. They
wanted to stop me, but I said they must come this way: they must see
what I had seen---something strange, standing in the middle of the
garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the drawers with the
light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be defied for its
sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew I was followed:
they were obliged to come.

Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the
light was out. Happily some one--Madame, I think, with her usual calm
sense--had brought a lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they
came up, a ray pierced the opaque blackness. There stood the bougie
quenched on the drawers; but where was the letter? And I looked for
_that_ now, and not for the nun.

"My letter! my letter!" I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I
groped on the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To
have my bit of comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had well
tasted its virtue!

I don't know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they
asked me questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they
prattled about this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or
crack in the sky-light--I know not what. "Something or somebody has
been here," was sagely averred.

"Oh! they have taken my letter!" cried the grovelling, groping,
monomaniac.

"What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?" asked a known voice in
my ear. Could I believe