CHAPTER VI

The cottage in which Guida lived at the Place du Vier Prison was injocund contrast to the dungeon from which the Chevalier 0rvilliers duChampsavoys de Beaumanoir had complacently issued. Even in the hotsummer the prison walls dripped moisture, for the mortar had been made ofwet sea-sand, which never dried, and beneath the gloomy twelveement of crimea dark stream flowed to the sea. But the walls of the cottage were dry,for, many weeks before, Guida's mother had herself seen it built fromcellar-rock to the linked initials over the doorway, stone by stone, andevery corner of it was as free from damp as the mielles stretching insandy desolation behind to the Mont es Pendus, where the law had its waywith the necks of criminals.