But she could lean out of the window and strain her eyes to see.
They were by now accustomed to the gloom, the dilated pupils
taking in pictures of vague forms moving like ghouls in the
shadows. The other coach was not far, and she could hear Heron's
voice, still subdued and calm, and the curses of the men. But not
a sound from Percy.
"I think the prisoner is unconscious," she heard one of the men say.
"Lift him out of the carriage, then," was Heron's curt command;
"and you go and throw open the chapel gates."
Marguerite saw it all. The movement, the crowd of men, two vague,
black forms lifting another one, which appeared heavy and inert,
out of the coach, and carrying it staggering up towards the
chapel.
Then the forms disappeared, swallowed up by the more dense mass of
the little building, merged in with it, immovable as the stone
itself.
Only a few words reached her now.
"He is unconscious."
"Leave him there, then; he'll not move!"
"Now close the gates!"
There was a loud clang, and Marguerite gave a piercing scream.
She tore at the handle of the carriage door.
"Armand, Armand, go to him!" she cried; and all her self-control,
all her enforced calm, vanished in an outburst of wild, agonising
passion.
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