Adeline takes out the roll she found in the hidden rooms and, meaning only to skim it, sits down with it by her bed. The ink is faded, but the page opens as a plea to any stranger who reaches this spot: the writer was seized in October 1642 on the road to Caux by four ruffians, who would not name their employer and carried him through woods to this abbey. Her lamp gutters out in the middle of a sentence, and she goes to bed afraid for a man who may have suffered in the rooms behind her own wall.
The next morning the Marquis calls again, and La Motte's frown reminds Adeline of her promise to be civil. The La Mottes leave her alone with him, and he offers his title and fortune as amends for his earlier conduct. Adeline answers that after his earlier proposal she cannot listen to any other, and when he tells her to remember the dangers around her, she says that mentioning her misfortunes insults her more than it comforts her. That night she reads on. The prisoner is led up the spiral stair, through a door behind tapestry and a suite of dismal chambers, into the last room, where a jug of water is set down and the door is barred behind him. In damaged pages he counts days of silence, says goodbye to his children and writes by stealth, thanking a keeper who gave him the means. Then Adeline thinks she hears a whisper repeat "Here" behind her and a shape seems to cross the room, yet she does not wake the house for fear of ridicule.
Daylight calms her, but the Marquis comes again, and Peter signals to her from the hall, then vanishes when La Motte opens a door. No word of her father has come for three days, until La Motte says the Marquis believes he is near. Adeline offers to go back to him so that La Motte will not suffer. La Motte calls this rash, wonders why she refuses a man of rank, and warns that he cannot say how long he can afford even her humble keep. Weeping, she thinks of Theodore. She tells La Motte that marriage with the Marquis would be splendid but never happy, and asks that he never be named again, while Peter's signal still waits to be explained.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
Peter slips into the hall, looks hard at Adeline and almost beckons. In the recess, and then in the cloisters, he begs her to speak low and swear by the Holy Virgin never to say he told her. He starts to whisper about danger, then keeps breaking off to look for his master.
