"Here they are."

"Pass them through the box."

"Where is it?"

"To your left."

Philippe Goulenoire put the letter through the slit of an iron box
above which was a loophole.

"The devil!" thought he, "plainly the king comes here, as they say he
does; he couldn't take more precautions at Plessis."

He waited for more than a quarter of an hour in the street. After that
lapse of time, he heard Cornelius saying to his sister, "Close the
traps of the door."

A clinking of chains resounded from within. Philippe heard the bolts
run, the locks creak, and presently a small low door, iron-bound,
opened to the slightest distance through which a man could pass. At
the risk of tearing off his clothing, Philippe squeezed himself rather
than walked into La Malemaison. A toothless old woman with a hatchet
face, the eyebrows projecting like the handles of a cauldron, the nose
and chin so near together that a nut could scarcely pass between them,
--a pallid, haggard creature, her hollow temples composed apparently
of only bones and nerves,--guided the "soi-disant" foreigner silently
into a lower room, while Cornelius followed prudently behind him.