The deputies, learning from the landlord that only an old woman and her nieces inhabited the upper story, and having a heavy task before them, had only paid a short visit to the room, and had left after asking Louise one or two questions.
The girls, however, were in a state of terrible anxiety as to their parents, although Louise had avoided repeating to them the sinister rumours which came to her ears when she was abroad doing her marketing, for she now went out alone, thinking it better that the girls should appear as little as possible in the streets.
"It is terrible," Marie said.

"I think night and day of our father and mother.

Can nothing be done?
Surely we might devise some means for their escape." "I can think of nothing," Harry said.

"The prison is too strong to be taken without a considerable force, and it would be impossible to get that together." "Could we not bribe these wretches ?" "I have thought over that too," Harry replied; "but, you see, it would be necessary to get several men to work together.

One might, perhaps, bribe the man who has charge of the cell, but there would be other warders, and the guard at the gate, and the latter are changed every day.