His smile was as easy, his manner as unembarrassed, his voice as steady,

as when he had entered the room. The old gamesters who stood round the

table, and had seen, with interest indeed and some pity, but with no

great emotion, a man play his last stake, saw this, saw a man stake his

life for a whim, with very different feelings; with astonishment, with

admiration, with a sense of inferiority that did not so much gall their

pride as awaken their interest. For the moment, the man who was above

death, who risked it for a fancy, a trifle, a momentary gratification,

was a demigod. "Throw!" repeated Crillon, heedless and apparently

unconscious of the stir round him: "Throw! but beware of that candle!

Your sleeve is in it."

It was; it was singeing. Berthaud moved the candle, and as if his

enemy's _sang froid_ wounded him, he threw savagely, dashing down the

dice on the table, and lifting the box with a gesture of defiance. He

swore a frightful oath: his face was livid. He had thrown aces only.

"So!" murmured his opponent quietly. "Is that all? A thousand crowns to

a hundred that I better that! Five hundred to a hundred that I double

it! Will no one take me? Then I throw. Courage, my friend. I am

Crillon!"

He threw; an ace and a deuce.

"I waste nothing," he said.

But few heard the words--his opponent perhaps and one or two others; for

from end to end the room rang and the oaken rafters shook with a great

cry of "Long live Crillon! the brave Crillon!"--a cry which rose from a

score of throats. Then and onwards till the day of his death, many years

later, he was known throughout France by no other name. The great king's

letter to him, "Hang yourself, brave Crillon. We have fought to-day, and

you were not there!" is not yet forgotten--nay, never will be

forgotten--in a land where, more than in other, the memories of the past

have been swept away.

He rose from the table, bowing grandly, superbly, arrogantly. "Adieu, M.

Berthaud--for the present," he said; and had he not seemed too proud to

threaten, a threat might have underlain his words. "Adieu, gentlemen,"

he continued, throwing on his cloak. "A good night to you, and equal

fortune. M. de Bazan, I will trouble you to accompany me? You have

exchanged, let me tell you, one taskmaster for another."

The young man's heart was too full for words, and making no attempt to

speak, or to thank his benefactor, before those who had seen the deed,

he followed him from the room. Crillon did not speak or halt until they

stood in the Rue des Fosses; nor even there, for after a momentary

hesitation he passed through it, and led the way to the middle of the

open space before the Louvre. Here he stopped, and touched his companion

on the breast. "Now," he said, "we can speak with freedom, my friend.

You wish to thank me? Do not. Listen to me instead. I have saved your

life, ay, that have I; but I hold it at my will? Say, is it not so?

Well, I, too, in my turn wish you to do something for me."

"Anything!" said the young man, passionately. The sight of the other's

strange daring had stirred his untried nature to its depths. "You have

but to ask and have."

"Very well," Crillon answered, gravely, "be it so. I take you at your

word. Though, mind you, M. de Bazan, 'tis no light thing I ask. It is

something," pausing, "from which I shrink myself."

"Then it is nothing you ask me to do," Bazan answered.

"Not so," the courtier replied, though he looked far from ill-pleased by

the compliment. "Listen. To-morrow the king sups at the house of Madame

de Sauves. I shall be with him. Her house is in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec,

two doors from the convent. Here are a hundred crowns. Dress yourself so

that you may appear as one of my gentlemen, and wait near the gates till

I come. Then follow me in, and at supper stand behind my chair, as the

others of my suite will stand."

"And is that all?" Bazan asked in astonishment.

"No, not quite," Crillon answered dryly. "The rest I will whisper in

your ear as I pass. Only do what I bid you boldly and faithfully, my

friend, and afterwards, if all be well, I will not forget you."

"I am yours! Do with me as you will!" Bazan protested.

But to mortals the unknown is ever terrible; and for twenty-four hours

Bazan had the unknown before him. What could that be from which Crillon

himself said that he shrank--a man so brave? It could not be death, for

that he had risked on the lightest, the flimsiest, the most fantastic

provocation. Then what could it be? Bazan turned the question in his

mind, turned it a hundred times that night, turned it a hundred times as

he went about his preparations next day. Turned it and turned it, but

instinctively, though no injunctions to that effect had been given him,

took care to show himself as little as possible in public, and

especially to shun all places where he might meet those who had been

present at that strange game at Simon's.

A quarter before nine on the next evening, saw him waiting with a

beating heart outside the house in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. He formed one

of a crowd of lackeys, and linkboys, citizens, apprentices, and chance

passers who had been attracted to the spot by the lights and by the

guards in the royal livery, who already, though the king was not come,

kept the entrance to the courtyard. Bazan pushed himself with some

difficulty into the front rank, and there waited, scanning with feverish

eagerness every one who entered.

Time passed, and no Crillon appeared, though presently a great shouting

along the street proclaimed the approach of the Duke of Guise, and that

nobleman passed slowly in, noting with a falcon's eye the faces of the

bowing throng. He was a man of grand height and imperial front--a great

scar seeming to make the latter more formidable--his smile a trifle

supercilious, his eyes somewhat near one another; and under his glance

Bazan felt for the moment small and mean. A little later, from the talk

of those about him, the young man learned that the king was drawing

near, and Henry's coach, surrounded by a dozen of the Forty-five,

lumbered along the street. It was greeted with comparative coldness,

only those who stood under the guards' eyes performing a careless

salute.

Bazan was no Parisian, though for the present in Paris, and no Leaguer,

though a Roman Catholic; and he forgot his present errand in the

excitement of his rustic loyalty. Raising his bonnet, he cried loudly

_Vive le Roi!_--cried it more than once. There were six in the coach,

but Henry, whose pale meagre face with its almond eyes and scanty beard

permitted no mistake, remarked the salutation and the giver, and his

look cast the young man into a confusion which nearly cost him dearly;

for it was only as the guards closed round the coach that he perceived

Crillon sitting in the nearer boot. The moment he did see him he pushed

forward among the running footmen who followed the coach, and succeeded

in entering with it.

The courtyard, crowded with gentlemen, lackeys and torch-bearers, was a

scene of great confusion, and Bazan had no difficulty in approaching

Crillon and exchanging a sentence with him. That effected, so completely

was he confounded by the order whispered in his ear, that he observed

nothing more until he found himself in a long gallery, waiting with many

others attached to the great men's suites, while the magnificoes

themselves talked together at the upper end. By listening to the gossip

round him, he learned that one dark handsome man among the latter was

Alphonso d'Ornano, often called the Corsican Captain. A second was M.

d'O, the Governor of Paris; a third, the Count of Soissons. But he had

scarcely time to note these, or the novel and splendid scene in which he

stood, before the double doors at the end of the gallery were thrown

widely open, and amid a sudden hush the great courtiers passed into the

supper room in which the king, the Duke of Guise, and several ladies,

already stood or sat in their places, having entered by another door.

Bazan pressed in with the flock of attendant gentlemen, and seeing

Crillon preparing to sit down not far from the dais and canopy which

marked the king's chair, he took his stand against the wall behind him.

If the words which Crillon had dropped into his ear had not occupied

three-fourths of his thoughts, Bazan would have felt a keener admiration

of the scene before him; which, as was natural, surpassed in luxury

anything the country lad had ever imagined. The room, panelled and

ceiled with cedar, was hung with blue velvet and lighted by a hundred

tapers. The table gleamed with fine napery and gold plate, with Palissy

ware and Cellini vases; and these, with the rich dresses and jewels and

fair shoulders of the ladies, combined to form a beautiful interior

which resounded with the babble of talk and laughter. It was hard to

detect danger lurking under these things, under the silk, within the

flashing, gleaming cups, behind smiling eyes; still harder to discern

below these fair appearances a peril from which a Crillon shrank.

But to Bazan, as he waited with tortured nerves, these things were

nothing. They were no more than fair flowers to the man who espies the

coils of a snake among the blossoms. Crillon's whisper had revealed all

to him--all, in one brief sentence; so that when he presently recognized

Michel Berthaud standing near the upper end of the table and on the

farther side of it, in attendance upon the Duke of Guise, he felt no

astonishment, but only a shrewd suspicion of the quarter from which the

danger might be expected.

The king, a man of thirty-seven, so effeminate in appearance that it was

hard to believe he had seen famous fields and once bidden fair to be a

great Captain, was nursing a dog on his lap, the while he listened with

a weary air to the whispers of the beautiful woman who sat next him.

Apparently he had a niggard ear even for her witcheries, and little

appetite save for the wine flask. Lassitude lived in his eyes, his long

thin fingers trembled. Bazan watched him drain his goblet of wine,

almost as soon as he sat down, and watched him, too, hold out the gold

cup to be filled again. The task was performed by an assiduous hand, and

for a moment the king poised the cup in his fingers, speaking to his

neighbour the while. Then he laid it down, but his hand did not quit its

neighbourhood.

The next moment the room rang with a cry of alarm and indignation, and

every face was turned one way. Bazan with unparalleled audacity had

stepped forward, had seized the sacred cup almost from the royal hand,

and drained it!

While some sprang from their seats, two or three seized the culprit and

held him fast. One more enthusiastic than the others or more keenly

sensitive to the outrage of which he had been guilty, aimed a fierce

blow at his breast with a poniard. The stroke was well meant, nay, was

well directed; but it was adroitly intercepted by M. de Crillon, who had

been among the first to rise. With a blow of his sheathed sword he sent

the dagger spinning towards the ceiling.

"Back!" he cried, in a voice of thunder, placing himself before the

culprit. "Stand back, I say! I will answer to the king for all!"

He cleared a space before him with his scabbard, and a quick signal

brought to his side the two guards at the nearest door, who were men of

his command. These, crossing their pikes before the prisoner, secured

him from immediate attack. By this time all in the room had risen save

the king, who appeared less moved than any by the incident. At this

point he raised his hand to procure silence.

"Is he mad?" he asked calmly. "What is it, Crillon?"

"I will satisfy your Grace," the courtier answered. But the next moment,

with a sudden change of tone, he cried loudly and rapidly, "Stop that

man, I beg you, d'Ornano! Stop him!"

The warning came too late. The Corsican sprang indeed to the door, but

the crowd impeded him; and the man to whom Crillon referred--the same

who had struck at Bazan, and who was no other than Berthaud--got to it

first, slipped out and was gone from sight, before those near the

entrance had recovered from their surprise.

"Follow him," Crillon cried loudly. "Seize him at all hazards! _Mort de

Dieu!_ He has outwitted us at last."

"His Majesty has asked, M. de Crillon," said one at the table, speaking

in the haughty, imperious tone of a man who never spoke unheeded, "what

is the meaning of all this? Perhaps you will kindly satisfy him."

"I will satisfy him," Crillon answered, grimly fixing his eyes on the

other's handsome face. "And you, too, M. de Guise. An attempt has been

made to poison my master. This young man, observing that a strange hand

poured the king's wine, has saved his Majesty's life by taking the

poison himself!"

Henry of Guise laughed scornfully. "A likely story!" he said.

"And in my house!" Madame de Sauves cried in the same tone. "His Majesty

will not believe that I----"

"I said nothing against Madame de Sauves," Crillon answered, with

firmness. "For the rest, let the king be judge. The issue is simple. If

the lad go scatheless, there was no poison in that cup and I am a liar.

If he suffer, then let the king say who lies!"

A close observer might have seen an uneasy expression flit across more

than one face, darken more than one pair of eyes. Crillon remained on

his guard facing the table, his eyes keenly vigilant. The Count of

Soissons, one of the younger Bourbons, had already stepped to the king's

side and taken place by his chair, his hand on his hilt. D'Ornano, who

had despatched two guards after Berthaud, openly drew his long sword and

placed himself on the other side of the dais. Nor was suspicion confined

to their party. Half a dozen gentlemen had risen to their feet about the

Duke of Guise, who continued to sit with folded arms, content to smile.

He was aware that at the worst here in Paris he was safe; perhaps he was

innocent of harm or intent.

The main effect, however, of Crillon's last words was to draw many eyes,

and amongst them the king's, to the prisoner's face. Bazan was leaning

against the wall, the cup still in his grasp. As they turned with a

single movement towards him, his face began to grow a shade paler, a

spasm moved his lips, and after the interval of a moment the cup fell

from his hand to the ground. Thrusting himself with a convulsive

movement from the wall, he put out his hands and groped with them as if

he could no longer see; until, one of them meeting the pike of the

nearest guard, he tried to support himself by this. At the same time he

muttered hoarsely, "M. de Crillon, you saw it! We are--we are quits!"

He would have fallen on that, but the men caught him in their arms and

held him up, amid a murmur of horror; to many brave men death in this

special form is appalling. Here and there a woman shrieked; one fainted.

Meanwhile, the young man's face was becoming livid; his neck seemed to

stiffen, his eyes to protrude. The king looked at him and shuddered.

"Saint Denis!" he muttered, the perspiration standing on his brow, "what

an escape! What an escape! Can nothing be done for him?"

"I will try, Sire," Crillon answered, abandoning for the first time his

attitude of watchfulness. Drawing a small phial from his pocket, he

directed one of the guards to force open the lad's teeth, and then

himself poured the contents of the bottle between them.

"Good lad," he muttered to himself, "he has drained the cup. I bade him

drink only half. It would have been enough. But he is young and strong.

He may surmount it."

The rest looked on, some in curiosity, some in pity, some in secret

apprehension. It was the Duke of Guise who put into words the thoughts

of many. "Those," he said scornfully, "who find the antidote, may know

the poison, M. de Crillon."

"What do you mean, Duke?" Crillon replied passionately, as he sprang to

his feet. "That I was in this? That I know more than I have told of it?

If so, you lie, sir; and you know it!"

"I know it?" the Duke cried, his eyes aflame, his cheeks reddening.

Never had he heard such words. "Do you dare to insinuate--that I know

more of this plot than yourself--if plot there be?"

"Enough!" said the king, rising in great haste, and with a face which

betrayed his emotion. "Silence, gentlemen! silence! And you, my cousin,

not another word, I command you! Who poured out the wine?"

"A villain called Berthaud," Crillon answered promptly and fiercely,

"who was in attendance upon the Duke of Guise."

"He was not in attendance on me!" the duke answered, with spirit.

"Then on Madame de Sauves."

"I know nothing of him!" cried that lady, hysterically. "I never spoke

to the man in my life. I do not know him!"

"Enough!" the king said with decision; but the gloom on his brow grew

darker. "Enough. Until Berthaud is found, let no more be said. Cousin,"

he continued to the Count of Soissons, "you will see us home. D'Ornano,

we return at once, and you will accompany us. For M. de Crillon, we

commit to him the care of this young man, to whom we appear to be

indebted, and whose thought for us we shall not forget. Madame, I kiss

your hand."

Guise's salutation he acknowledged only by a grave bow. The last of the

Valois could at times exert himself, could at times play again the hero

of Jarnac and Montcontour, could even assume a dignity no whit less

than that of Guise. As he retired all bowed low to him, and the greater

part of the assemblage--even those who had not attended him to the

house--left in his train. In three minutes Crillon, a couple of inferior

officers, and a handful of guards alone remained round the young man.

"He will recover," Crillon said, speaking to the officer next him. "He

is young, and they did not dare to make the dose too strong. We shall

not, however, convict any one now, unless Berthaud speaks."

"Berthaud is dead."

"What?"

"As dead as Clovis," the lieutenant repeated calmly. "He is lying in the

passage, M. de Crillon."

"Who killed him?" cried Crillon, leaping up in a rage. "Who dared to

kill him? Not those fools of guards when they knew it was his evidence

we wanted."

"No, no," said the other coolly. "They found him dead not twenty paces

from the house. He was a doomed man when he passed through the door. You

understand, M. de Crillon? He knew too much to live."

"_Mort de Dieu!_" cried Crillon, raising his hands in admiration. "How

clever they are! Not a thing forgotten! Well, I will to the king and

tell him. It will put him on his guard. If I had not contrived to try

the draught there and then, I could not have convinced him; and if I had

not by a lucky hazard won this young man last night, I might have

whistled for one to try it! But I must go."

Yet he lingered a minute to see how the lad progressed. The convulsions

which had for a time racked Bazan's vigorous frame had ceased, and a

profuse perspiration was breaking out on his brow.

"Yes, he will recover," said Crillon again, and with greater confidence.

As if the words had reached Bazan's brain, he opened his eyes.

"I did it!" he muttered. "I did it. We are quits, M. de Crillon!"

"Not so!" cried the other, stooping impetuously and embracing him. "Not

quits! The balance is against me now, but I will redress it. Be easy;

your fortune is made, M. de Bazan. While James Berthon de Crillon lives

you shall not lack a friend!"

He kept his word. There can be little doubt that the Laurence de Bazan

who held high office under the Minister Sully, and in particular rose to

be Deputy Superintendent of the Finances in Guienne, was our young

Bazan. This being so, it is clear that he outlived by many years his

patron: for Crillon, "le brave Crillon," whose whim it was to dare

greatly, and on small occasion, died early in the seventeenth

century--in his bed--and lies under a famous stone in the Cathedral of

Avignon. Whereas we find Bazan still flourishing, and a person of

consequence at Court, when Richelieu came to the height of his power.

Nevertheless on him there remains no stone; only some sketch of the

above, and a crabbed note at the foot of a dusty page in a dark

library.

FOR THE CAUSE

I

Paris had never seemed to the eye more peaceful than on a certain

November evening in the year 1591: and this although many a one within

its walls resented the fineness of the night as a mockery, as a scoff

alike at the pain of some and the fury of others.

The moonlight fell on roofs and towers, on the bare open space of the

Place de Greve, and the dark mass of the Louvre, and only here and there

pierced, by chance, a narrow lane, to gleam on some foul secret of the

kennel. The Seine lay a silvery loop about the Ile de la Cite--a loop

cut on this side and that by the black shadows of the Pont au Change,

and the Petit Pont, and broken again westward by the outline of the New

Bridge, which was then in building.

The city itself lay in profound quiet in the depth of the shadow. From

time to time at one of the gates, or in the vaulted lodge of the

Chatelet, a sentinel challenged or an officer spoke. But the bell of St.

Germain l'Auxerrois, which had rung through hours of the past day, was

silent. The tumult which had leaped like flame from street to street

had subsided. Peaceful men breathed again in their houses, and women, if

they still cowered by the hearth, no longer laid trembling fingers on

their ears. For a time the red fury was over: and in the narrow

channels, where at noon the mob had seethed and roared, scarcely a stray

wayfarer could now be found.

A few however were abroad: and of these some, who chanced to be

threading the network of streets between the Chatelet and the Louvre,

heard behind them the footsteps of one in great haste. Turning, they saw

pass by them a youth, wearing a sword and a student's short cloak and

cap--apparently he was a member of the University. He was pale of face,

and for his part looked neither to right nor left: saw not one of them,

and seemed bent only on getting forward.

He slackened his pace however near the corner of the Rue de Tirchape,

where it shoots out of the Rue de Bethisy; and then turning the corner

impulsively, he caught his foot in some obstacle, and, plunging forward,

would have fallen, if he had not come against a man, who seemed to be

standing still in the shadow of the corner house.

"Hold up!" exclaimed this person, withstanding the shock better than

could have been expected, for he was neither tall nor bulky. "You should

have a pretty mistress, young man, if you go to her at this pace!"

The student did not answer--did not seem to hear. He staggered against

the wall, and stood propping himself up by it. His face, pale before,

was ghastly, as he glared, horror-struck, at something beyond the

speaker. The latter, after muttering angrily, "What the plague, then, do

you go dashing about the streets like a Shrove Tuesday ox for?" turned

also and glanced behind him.

But not at that to which the student's eyes were directed. The stranger

seemed constrained to look first and by preference at the long, low

casement of a house nearly opposite them. This window was on the first

floor, and projected somewhat over the roadway. There seemed to be no

light in the room within; but the moonlight reached it, and showed a

woman's head bent on the sill--a girl's head, if one might judge from

its wealth of hair. One white wrist gleamed amid the coil, but her face

was hidden on her arms and showed not. In the whole scene--in the

casement open at this inclement time, in the girl's attitude, in her

abandonment, there was something which stirred the nerves. It was only

after a long look that the stranger averted his eyes, and cast a casual

glance at a queer, dark object, which a few paces away swung above the

street, dimly outlined against the sky. It was clear that it was that

which had fascinated his companion.

"Umph!" he ejaculated in the tone of a man who should say "Is that all?"

And he turned to the youth again. "You seem taken aback, young man?" he

said. "Surely that is no such strange sight in Paris nowadays. What with

Leaguers hanging Politiques, and Politiques hanging Leaguers, and both

burning Huguenots, I thought a dead man was no longer a bogey to

frighten children with!"

"Hush, sir, in Heaven's name!" the young man exclaimed, shuddering at

his words. And then, with a gesture of despair, "He was my father!"

The stranger whistled. "He was your father, was he!" he replied more

gently. "I dare swear too that he was an honest man, since the Sixteen

have done this. There, steady, my friend. These are no times for

weeping. Be thankful that Le Clerc and his crew have spared your home,

and your--your sister. That is rare clemency in these days, and Heaven

only knows how long it may last. You wear a sword? Then shed no tears to

rust it. Time enough to weep, man, when there is blood to be washed from

the blade."

"You speak boldly," said the youth, checking his emotion somewhat, "but

had they hung your father before his own door----"

"Good man," said the stranger with a coolness that bordered on the

cynical, "he has been dead these twenty years."

"Then your mother?" the student suggested with the feeble persistence by

which weak minds show their consciousness of contact with stronger ones,

"you had then----"

"Hung them all as high as Haman!"

"Ay, but suppose there were among them some you could not hang,"

objected the youth, in a lower tone, while he eyed his companion

narrowly, "some of the clergy, you understand?"

"They had swung--though they had all been Popes of Rome," was the blunt

answer.

The young man shook his head, and drew off a pace. He scanned the

stranger curiously, keeping his back turned to the corpse the while; but

he failed by that light to make out much one way or the other. Scarcely

a moment too was allowed him before the murmur of voices and the clash

of weapons at the farther end of the street interrupted him. "The watch

are coming," he said roughly.

"You are right," his companion assented, "and the sooner we are within

doors the better."

It was noticeable that throughout their talk which had lasted some

minutes no sign of life had appeared in any of the neighbouring houses.

Scarce a light shone from doorway or window though it was as yet but

nine o'clock. In truth fear of the Sixteen and of the mob whom they

guided was overpowering Paris--was a terror crushing out men's lives.

While the provinces of France were divided between two opinions, and

half of them owned the Huguenot Henry the Fourth--now for two years the

rightful sovereign--Paris would have none of him. The fierce bigotry of

the lower classes, the presence of some thousands of Spanish soldiers,

and the ambition and talents of the Guise family combined at once to

keep the gates of Paris closed to him, and to overawe such of the

respectable citizens as from religious sympathy in rare cases, more

often out of a desire to see the re-establishment of law and order,

would have adopted his cause. The Politiques, or moderate party, who

were indifferent about religion as such, but believed that a strong

government could be formed only by a Romanist king, were almost

non-existent in Paris. And the events of the past day, the murder of

three magistrates and several lower officials--among them poor M.

Portail, whose body now decorated the Rue de Tirchape--had not reassured

the municipal mind. No wonder that men put out their lights early, and

were loth to go to their windows, when they might see a few feet from

the casement the swollen features of a harmless, honest man, but

yesterday going to and from his work like other men.

Young Portail stole to the door of the house and knocked hurriedly. As

he did so, he looked, with something like a shiver of apprehension, at

the window above his head. But the girl neither moved nor spoke, nor

betrayed any consciousness of his presence. She might have been dead. It

was a young man, about his own age or a little older, who, after

reconnoitring him from above, cautiously drew back the door. "Whom have

you with you?" he whispered, holding it ajar, and letting the end of a

stout club be seen.

"No one," Portail replied in the same cautious tone. And he would have

entered without more ado, and closed the door behind him had not his

late companion, who had followed him across the street like his shadow,

set his foot against it. "Nay, but you are forgetting me," he said

good-humouredly.

"Go your way! we have enough to do to protect ourselves," cried Portail,

brusquely.

"The more need of me," was the careless answer.

The watch were now but a few houses away, and the stranger seemed

determined. He could scarcely be kept out without a disturbance. With an

angry oath Felix Portail held the door for him to enter; and closed it

softly behind him. Then for a minute or so the three stood silent in the

darkness of the damp-smelling passage, while with a murmur of voices and

clash of weapons, and a ruddy glimmer piercing crack and keyhole, the

guard swept by.

"Have you a light?" Felix murmured, as the noise began to die away.

"In the back room," replied the young man who had admitted them. He

seemed to be a clerk or confidential servant. "But your sister," he

continued, "is distraught. She has sat at the window all day as you see

her now--sometimes looking at _it_. Oh, Felix," in a voice shaken by

tears, "this has been a dreadful day for this house!"

The young Portail assented by a groan. "And Susanne?" he asked.

"Is with Mistress Marie, terrified almost to death, poor child. She has

been crouching all day beside her, hiding her face in her gown. But

where were you?"

"At the Sorbonne," Felix replied, in a whisper.

"Ah!" the other exclaimed, something of hidden meaning in his tone. "I

would not tell her that, if I were you. I feared it was so. But let us

go upstairs."

They went up; the stranger following, with more than one stumble by the

way. At the head of the staircase the clerk opened a door and preceded

them into a low-roofed panelled room, plainly but solidly furnished, and

lighted by a small hanging lamp of silver. A round oak table on six

curiously turned legs stood in the middle, and on it some food was laid.

A high-backed chair, before which a sheep-skin rug was spread, and two

or three stools, made up, with a great oak chest, the furniture of the

room.

The stranger turned from scrutinizing his surroundings, and stood at

gaze. Another door had opened silently; he saw framed in the doorway and

relieved by the lamplight against the darkness of the outer room the

face and figure of a tall girl; doubtless the one whom he had seen at

the window. A moment she stood pointing at them with her hand, her face

white--and whiter in seeming by reason of the black hair which fell

round it; her eyes were dilated, the neckband of her dark red gown was

torn open that she might have air. "A Provencal!" the intruder murmured

to himself. "Beautiful and a tigress."

At any rate, for the moment, beside herself. "So you have come at last!"

she said, panting, glaring at Felix with scorn, passionate scorn in word

and gesture. "Where were you while these slaves of yours did your

bidding? At the Sorbonne with the black crows! Thinking out fresh work

for them? Or dallying with your Normandy sweetheart?"

"Hush!" he said, lowering his eyes, and visibly quailing before her.

"There is a stranger here."

"There have been many strangers here to-day!" she retorted with

undiminished bitterness. "Hush, you say? Nay, but I will not be silent

for you, for any! They may tear me limb from limb, but I will accuse

them of this murder before God's throne. Coward! Parricide! Do you think

I will ask mercy from them? Come, look on your work! See what the League

have done--your holy League!--while you sat plotting with the black

crows!"

She pointed into the dark room behind her, and the movement disclosed a

younger girl clinging to her skirts, and weeping silently. "Come here,

Susanne," Felix said; he had turned pale and red and shifted from one

foot to another, under the lash of the elder girl's scorn. "Your sister

is not herself. You do no good, Marie, staying in there. See, you are

both trembling with cold."

"With cold?" was the fierce rejoinder. "Then do you warm yourselves! Sit

down and eat and drink and be comfortable and forget him! But I will not

eat nor drink while he hangs there! Shame, Felix Portail! Shame! Have

you arms and hands, and will let your father hang before his own door?"

Her voice rang shrill to the last word audible far down the street; that

said, an awkward silence fell on the room. The stranger nodded twice,

almost as if he said, "Bravo!--Bravo." The two men of the house cast

doubtful glances at one another. At length the clerk spoke. "It is

impossible, mistress," he said gently. "Were he touched, the mob would

wreck the house to-morrow."

"A little bird whispered to me as I came through the streets,"--it was

the stranger who spoke--"that Mayenne and his riders would be in town

to-morrow. Then it seems to me that our friends of the Sorbonne will not

have matters altogether their own way--to wreck or to spare!"

The Sorbonne was the Theological College of Paris; at this time it was

the headquarters of the extreme Leaguers and the Sixteen. Mayenne and

D'Aumale, the Guise princes, more than once found it necessary to check

the excesses of the party.

Marie Portail looked for the first time at the speaker. He sat on the

edge of the chest, carelessly swinging one knee over the other; a man of

middle height, neither tall nor short, with well-bronzed cheeks, a

forehead broad and white, and an aquiline nose. He wore a beard and

moustaches, and his chin jutted out. His eyes were keen, but

good-humoured. Though spare he was sinewy; and an iron-hilted sword

propped against his thigh seemed made for use rather than show. The

upper part of his dress was of brown cloth, the lower of leather. A

weather-stained cloak, which he had taken off, lay on the chest beside

him.

"You are a man!" cried Marie, her eyes leaving him again. "But as for

these----"

"Stay, mistress!" the clerk broke in. "Your brother does but collect

himself. If the Duke of Mayenne returns to-morrow, as our friend here

says is likely--and I have heard the same myself--he will keep his men

in better order. That is true. And we might risk it if the watch would

leave us a clear street."

Felix nodded sullenly. "Shut the door," he said to his sister, the deep

gloom on his countenance in sharp contrast with the excitement she

betrayed. "There is no need to let the neighbours see us."

This time she obeyed him. Susanne too crept from her skirts, and threw

herself on her knees, hiding her face on a chair. "Ay," said Marie,

looking down at her with the first expression of tenderness the stranger

had noted in her. "Let her weep. Let children weep. But let men work."

"We want a ladder," the clerk said, in a low voice. "And the longest we

have is full three feet short."

"That is just half a man," remarked he who sat on the chest.

"What mean you?" Felix asked wonderingly.

"What I said."

"But there is nothing on which we can rest the ladder," the clerk urged.

"Then that is a whole man," quoth the stranger, curtly. "Perhaps two. I

told you you would have need of me." He looked from one to the other

with a smile--a careless, reckless, self-contented smile.

"You are a soldier," said Marie. And abruptly she fixed her eyes upon

him.

"At times," he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"For which side?"

He shook his head. "For my own," he answered naively.

"A soldier of fortune?"

"At your service, mistress; now and ever."

The clerk struck in with impatience. "If we are to do this," he said,

"we had better set about it. I will fetch the ladder."

He went out, and the other men followed more slowly down the stairs;

leaving Marie still standing gazing into the darkness of the front

room--she had opened the door again--like one in a trance. Some odd

trait in the soldier led him, as he passed out, to lay his hand on the

hair of the kneeling child with a movement infinitely tender; infinitely

at variance with the harsh clatter with which his sword next moment rang

against the stairs as he descended.

The three men were going to do that which two for certain, and all

perhaps, knew to be perilous. One went to it in gloom, reluctance and

anger, as well as with sorrow at his heart. One bustled about nervously,

and looked often behind him as if to see Marie's pale face at the

window. And one strode out as to a ball, glancing up and down the dark

lane with an air of enjoyment, which not even the grim nature of his

task could suppress. The body was hanging from a bar which crossed the

street at a considerable height, and served as a stay between the gables

of two opposite houses, of which one was two doors only from the unhappy

Portail's. The mob, with a barbarity very common in those days, had hung

him on his own threshold.

The street, as the three moved into it, seemed empty and still. But it

was impossible to say how long it would remain so. Yet the soldier

loitered, staring about him, as one remembering things. "Did not the

Admiral live in this street?" he inquired.

"De Coligny? No. Round the corner in the Rue de Bethisy," replied the

clerk, brusquely. "But see! The ladder will not reach the bar--no, not

by four feet."

"Set it against the wall then--thus," said the soldier, and having done

it himself, he mounted a few steps. Then he seemed to bethink himself.

He jumped down again. "No," he exclaimed, peering sharply into the faces

of one and the other, "I do not know you. If any one comes, my friends,

and you leave the foot of the ladder, I shall be taken like a bird on a

limed twig. Do you ascend, Monsieur Felix."

The young man drew back. He was not without courage, or experience of

rough scenes. But the Louvre was close at hand, almost within earshot on

one side, the Chatelet was scarcely farther off on the other; and both

swarmed with soldiers and the armed scourings of the streets. At any

moment a troop of these might pass; and should they detect any one

interfering with King Mob's handiwork, he would certainly dangle in a

few minutes from that same handy lamp-iron. Felix knew this, and stood

at gaze. "I do not know you either," he muttered irresolutely, his hand

still on the ladder.

A smile of surprising humour played on the soldier's face. "Nay, but you

knew _him_!" he retorted, pointing upwards with his hand. "Trust me,

young sir," he added significantly, "I am less inclined to mount

now--than I was before."

The clerk intervened before Felix could resent the insult. "Steady," he

said; "I will go up and do it."

"Not so!" Felix rejoined, pushing him aside in turn. And he ran up the

ladder. But near the top he paused, and began to descend again. "I have

no knife," he said shamefacedly.

"Pshaw! Let me come!" cried the stranger. "I see you are both good

comrades. I trust you. Besides, I am more used to this ladder work than

you are, and time is everything."

He ran up as he spoke, and, standing on the highest round but one, he

grasped the bar above his head, and swung himself lightly up, so as to

gain a seat on it. With more caution he wormed himself along it until he

reached the rope. Fortunately there was a long coil of this about the

bar; and warning his companions in a whisper, he carefully, and with

such reverence as the time and place allowed, let down the body to them.

They received it in their arms; and had just loosened the noose from the

neck when an outburst of voices and the tramp of footsteps at the nearer

end of the street surprised them. For an instant the two stood in the

gloom, breathless, stricken still, confounded. Then with a single

impulse they lifted the body between them, and huddled blindly towards

the door of the Portails' house. It opened at their touch, they stumbled

in, and it fell to behind them. The foremost of the armed watch had been

within ten paces of them. The escape was narrow.

Yet they had escaped. But what next? What of their comrade? The moment

the door was closed behind them, one at least would have rushed out

again, ay, to certain death, so strongly had the soldier's trust

appealed to his honour. But they had the body in their arms; and by the

time it was laid on the stairs, a score of men had passed. The

opportunity was over. They could do nothing but listen. "Heaven help

him!" fell from the clerk's quivering lips. Pulling the door close, they

stood, looking each moment to hear a challenge, a shot, the clash of

swords. But no. They heard the party halt under the gallows, and pass

some brutal jest, and go on. And that was all.

They could scarcely believe their ears; no, nor their eyes, when a few

minutes later, the street being now quiet, they passed out, and stood in

it shuddering. For there swung the corpse dimly outlined above them!

There! Certainly there! The clerk seized his companion's arm and drew

him back. "It was the fiend!" he stammered. "See, your father is still

there! It was the fiend who helped us!"

But at that the figure they were watching became agitated; an instant

and it slid gently to the ground. It was the soldier. "O ye gods!" he

cried, bent double with silent laughter. "Saw you ever such a trick? How

I longed to kick, if it were but my toe at them, and I forbore! Fools!

Did man ever see a body hung in its sword? But it was a good trick, eh?"

he continued, appealing to them with a simple pride in his invention. "I

had the rope loose in my hand when they came, and I drew it twice round

my neck--and one arm trust me--and swung off gently. It is not every one

who would have thought of that, my children!"

It was odd. They shook with fear, and he with laughter. He did not seem

to give a thought to the danger he had escaped. Pride in his readiness

and a keen sense of the humorous side of the incident possessed him

entirely. At the very door of the house he still chuckled from time to

time; muttering between the ebullitions, "Ah, I must tell Diane! Diane

will be pleased--at that! It was good! Very good!"

Once in the house, however, he acted with more delicacy than might have

been imagined. He stood aside while the other two carried the body

upstairs; and while they were absent, he waited patiently in the bare

room below, which showed signs of occasional use as a stable. Here the

clerk Adrian presently found him, and murmured some apology. Mistress

Marie, he said, had fainted.

"A matter which afflicts you, my friend," the soldier replied with a

grimace, "about as much as your master's death. Pooh, man, do not look

fierce! Good luck to you and your suit. Only if--but this is no house

for gallantry to-night--I had spruced myself and taken a part, you had

had to look to your one ewe lamb, I warrant you!"

The clerk turned pale and red by turns. This man seemed to read his

thoughts as if he had indeed been the fiend. "What do you wish?" he

stammered.

"Only shelter until the early morning when the streets are most quiet;

and a direction to the Rue des Lombards."

"The Rue des Lombards?"

"Yes, why not?" But though the soldier still smiled, the lines of his

mouth hardened suddenly. "Why not to the Rue des Lombards?"

"I know no reason why you should not be going there," the clerk replied

boldly. "It was only that the street is near; and a friend of my late

master's lives in it."

"His name?"

The clerk started; the question was put so abruptly, and in a tone so

imperious, it struck him as it were a blow. "Nicholas Toussaint," he

answered involuntarily.

"Ay?" replied the other, raising his hand to his chin and glancing at

Adrian with a look that for all the world reminded him of an old print

of the eleventh Louis, which hung in a room at the Hotel de Ville--so

keen and astute was it. "Your master, young man, was of the moderate

party--a Politique?"

"He was."

"A good man and a Catholic? one who loved France? A Leaguer only in

name?" the other continued with vividness.

"Yes, that is so."

"But his son? He is a Leaguer out and out--one who would rise to fortune

on the flood tide of the mob? A Sorbonnist? The priests have got hold of

him? He would do to others as they have done to his father? A friend of

Le Clerc and Boucher? That is all so, is it not?"

Adrian nodded reluctantly. This strange man confounded and yet

fascinated him: this man so reckless and gay one moment, so wary the

next; exchanging in an instant the hail of a boon companion for the tone

of a noble.

"And is your young master also a friend of this Nicholas Toussaint?" was

the next question, slowly put.

"No," said Adrian, "he has been forbidden the house. M. Toussaint does

not approve of his opinions."

"That is so, is it?" the stranger rejoined with his former gaiety. "And

now enough: where will you lodge me until morning?"

"If my closet will serve you," Felix answered with a hesitation he would

not have felt a few minutes before, "it is at your will. I will bring

some food there at once, and will let you out if you please at five."

And Adrian added some simple directions, by following which his guest

might reach the Rue des Lombards without difficulty.

An hour later if the thoughts of those who lay sleepless under that roof

could have been traced, strange contrasts would have appeared. Was Felix

Portail thinking of his dead father, or of his sweetheart in the Rue des

Lombards, or of his schemes of ambition? Was he blaming the crew of whom

until to-day he had been one, or sullenly cursing those factious

Huguenots as the root of the mischief? Was Adrian thinking of his kind

master, or of his master's daughter? Was the guest dreaming of his

narrow escape? or revolving plans beside which Felix's were but the

schemes of a rat in a drain? Perhaps Marie alone--for Susanne slept a

child's sleep of exhaustion--had her thoughts fixed on him, who only a

few hours before had been the centre of the household.

But such is life in troubled times. Pleasure and pain come mingled, and

men snatch the former from the midst of the latter with a trembling joy,

a fierce eagerness: knowing that if they wait to go a pleasuring until

the sky be clear, they may wait until nightfall.

When Adrian called his guest at cock-crow the latter rose briskly and

followed him down to the door. "Well, young sir," he said, pausing an

instant on the threshold, as he wrapped his cloak round him and took his

sheathed sword in his hand, "I am obliged to you. When I can do you a

service, I will."

"You can do me one now," the clerk replied bluntly. "It is ill work

having to do with strangers in these days. You can tell me who you are,

and to which side you belong."

"Which side? I have told you--my own. And for the rest," the soldier

continued, "I will give you a hint." He brought his lips near to the

other's ear, and whispered, "Kiss Marie--for me!"

The clerk looked up aflame with anger and surprise; but the other was

far gone striding down the street. Yet Adrian received an answer to his

question. For as the stranger disappeared in the gloom, he turned his

head and broke with an audacity that took away the listener's breath

into a well-known air,

"Hau! Hau! Papegots!

Faites place aux Huguenots!"

and trilled it as merrily as if he had been in the streets of Rochelle.

"Death!" the clerk exclaimed, getting back into the house, and barring

the door in a panic. "I thought so. He is a Huguenot. But if he take his

neck out of Paris unstretched, he will have the fiend's own luck, and

the Bearnais' to boot!"

II

When the clerk had re-mounted the stairs, he heard voices in the back

room. Felix and Marie were in consultation. The girl was a different

being this morning. The fire and fury of the night had sunk to a still

misery; and even to her, for his sister's sake, it seemed over-dangerous

to stay in the house and confront the rage of the mob. Mayenne might not

after all return: and in that case the Sixteen would assuredly wreak

their spite on all, however young or helpless, who might have had to do

with the removal of the body. "You must seek shelter with some friend,"

Felix urged, "before the city is astir. I can go to the University. I

shall be safe there."

"Could you not take us with you?" Marie suggested meekly.

He shook his head, his face flushing. It was hard to confess that he had

power to destroy, but none to protect. "You had better go to Nicholas

Toussaint's," he said. "You will be safe there, and he will take you in,

though he will have naught to do with me."

Marie assented with a sigh, and rose to make ready. Some few valuables

were hidden or secured, some clothes taken; and then the little party of

four passed out into the street, leaving but one solemn tenant in their

home. The cold light of a November morning gave to the lane an air,

even in their eyes, of squalor and misery. The kennel running down the

middle was choked with nastiness, while here and there the upper stories

leaned forward so far as to obscure the light.

The fugitives regarded these things little after the first shivering

glance, but hurried on their road; Felix with his sword marching on one

side of the girls, and Adrian with his club walking on the other. A

skulking dog got out of their way. The song of a belated reveller drove

them for a time under an arch. But they fell in with nothing more

formidable, and in five minutes came safely to the high wooden gates of

the courtyard in front of Nicholas Toussaint's house.

To arouse him or his servants without disturbing the neighbourhood was

another matter. There was no bell; only a heavy iron clapper. Adrian

tried this cautiously, with little hope of being heard. To his joy the

hollow sound had scarcely ceased when footsteps were heard crossing the

court, and a small trap in one of the gates was opened. An elderly man

with high cheek bones and curly grey hair looked out. His eyes lighting

on the girls lost their harshness. "Marie Portail!" he exclaimed. "Ah!

poor thing, I pity you. I have heard all. I returned to the city last

night only, or I should have been with you. And Adrian?"

"We have come," said the young man, respectfully, "to beg shelter for

Mistress Marie and her sister. It is no longer safe for them to remain

in the Rue de Tirchape."

"I can well believe it," cried Toussaint, vigorously. "I do not know

where we are safe nowadays. But there," he added in a different tone,

"no doubt the Sixteen are acting for the best."

"You will take them in then?" said Adrian with gratitude.

But to his astonishment the citizen shook his head, while an awkward

embarrassment twisted his features. "It is impossible!" he said.

Adrian doubted if he had heard aright. Nicholas Toussaint was known for

a bold man; one whom the Sixteen disliked, and even suspected of

Huguenot leanings, but one too whom they had not yet dared to attack. He

was a dealer in Norman horses, and this both led him to employ many men,

reckless daring fellows, and made him in some degree necessary to the

army. Adrian had never doubted that he would shelter the daughter of his

old friend; and his surprise on receiving this rebuff was extreme.

"But, Monsieur Toussaint--" he urged--and his face reddened with

generous warmth as he stood forward. "My master is dead! Foully

murdered! He lies who says otherwise, though he be of the Sixteen! My

mistress has few friends to protect her, and those of small power. Will

you send her and the child from your door?"

"Hush, Adrian," the girl interposed, lifting her head proudly, yet

laying her hand on the clerk's sleeve with a touch of acknowledgment

that brought the blood in redoubled force to his cheeks. "Do not press

our friend overmuch. If he will not take us in from the streets, be sure

he has some good reason to offer."

But Toussaint was dumb. Shame--a shame augmented tenfold by the clerk's

fearlessness--was so clearly written on his face, that Adrian uttered

none of the reproaches which hung on his lips. It was Felix who came

forward, and cried contemptuously, "So you have grown strangely cautious

of a sudden, M. Toussaint?"

"Ha! I thought you were there, or thereabouts!" the horse-dealer

replied, regaining his composure at once, and eyeing him with strong

disfavour.

"But Felix and I," Adrian exclaimed eagerly, "will fend for ourselves."

Toussaint shook his head. "It is impossible," he said surlily. "Quite

impossible!"

"Then hear me!" Felix interposed with excitement. "You do not deceive

me. It is not because of your daughter that you have forbidden me the

house, and will not now protect my sister! It is because we shall learn

too much. It is because you have those under your roof, whom the crows

shall pick--yet! You, I will spare for Madeline's sake; but your spies I

will string up, every one of them by----" and he swore a frightful

oath, such as the Romanists used.

Toussaint's face betrayed both fear and anger. For an instant he seemed

to hesitate. Then exclaiming, "Begone, parricide! You would have killed

your own father!" he slammed the trapdoor, and was heard retreating up

the yard with a haste and clatter which indicated his uneasiness.

The four looked at one another. Daylight had fully come. The noise of

the altercation had drawn more than one sleepy face to the window. In a

short time the streets would be alive with people, and even a delay of a

few minutes might bring destruction. They thought of this; and moved

away slowly and reluctantly, Susanne clinging to Adrian's arm, while

Felix strode ahead scowling. But when they had placed a hundred yards or

so between themselves and Toussaint's gates, they stopped, a chill sense

of desolation upon them. Whither were they to go? Felix urged that they

should seek other friends and try them. But Marie declined. If Nicholas

Toussaint dared not take them in, no other of their friends would. She

had given up hope, and longed only to get back to their home, and the

still form, which it seemed to her she should never have deserted.

They were standing discussing this when a cry caused them to turn. A

girl was running hatless along the street; a girl tall and plump of

figure, with a creamy slightly freckled face, a glory of waving golden

hair upon her shoulders, and great grey eyes that could laugh and cry at

once, even as they were doing now. "My poor Marie," she exclaimed,

taking her in her arms; "my poor little one! Come back! You are to come

back at once!" Then disengaging herself, with a blushing cheek, she

allowed Felix to embrace her. But though that young gentleman made full

use of his permission, his face did not clear. "Your father has just

turned my sister from his door," he said bitterly, "as he turned me a

month ago."

She looked at him with a tender upward glance meant for him only.

"Hush!" she begged him. "Do not speak so of my father. And he has sent

to fetch them back. He says he cannot keep them himself, but if they

will come in and rest he will see them safely disposed. Will not that

do?"

"Excellently, Miss Madeline," Adrian cried with gratitude. "And we thank

your father a thousand times."

"Nay, but--" she said slyly--"that permission does not extend to you."

"What matter?"

"What matter if Marie be safe you mean," she replied demurely. "Well, I

would I had so gallant a--clerk," with a glance at her own handsome

lover. "But come, my father is waiting at the gate for us." And she

urged haste, notwithstanding which she and Felix were the last to turn.

When she at length ran after the others her cheeks betrayed her.

"I can see what you have been doing, girl," her father cried, meeting

her within the door. "For shame, hussy! Go to your room, and take your

friends with you." And he aimed a light blow at her, which she easily

evaded.

"They will need breakfast," she persisted. She had seen her lover, and

though the interview might have had its drawbacks--best known to

herself--she cared little for a blow in comparison with that.

"They will take it in your room," he retorted. "Come, pack, girl! Pack!

I will talk to you presently," he added, with meaning.

The Portails drew her away. To them her room was a haven of rest, where

they felt safe, and could pour out their grief, and let her pity and

indignation soothe them. The horror of the last twenty-four hours began

to fall from them. They seemed to themselves to be outcasts no longer.

In the afternoon Toussaint reappeared. "On with your hoods," he cried

briskly, his good humour re-established. "I and half a dozen stout lads

will see you to a place where you can lie snug for a week."

Marie asked timidly about her father's funeral. "I will see to it,

little one," he answered. "I will let the curate of St. Germain know.

He will do what is seemly--if the mob let him," he added to himself.

"But, father," cried Madeline, "where are you going to take them?"

"To Philip Boyer's."

"What!" the girl cried in much surprise. "His house is small and Philip

and his wife are old and feeble."

"True," answered Toussaint. "But his hutch is under the Duchess's roof.

There is a touch of _our great man_ about Madame. Mayenne the crowd

neither overmuch love, nor much fear. He will die in his bed. But with

his sister it is a word and a blow. The Sixteen will not touch aught

that is under her roof."

The Duchess de Montpensier was the sister of Henry Duke of Guise, Henry

the Scarred, _Our great man_, as the Parisians loved to call him. He had

been assassinated in the ante-chamber of Henry of Valois some two years

before this time; and she had become the soul of the League, having more

of the headstrong nature which had made him popular, than either of his

brothers, Mayenne or D'Aumale.

"I see," said Madeline, kissing the girls, "you are right, father."

"Impertinent baggage!" he cried. "To your prayers and your needle. And

see that while we are away you keep close, and do not venture into the

courtyard even."

She was not a nervous girl, and she was used to be alone; but the bare,

roomy house seemed lonely after her father and his party had set out.

She wandered to the kitchen where the two old women-servants were

preparing, with the aid of a turnspit, the early supper; there she

learned that only old Simon, the lame ostler, was left in the stables,

which stood on either side of the courtyard. This was not re-assuring

news: the more as Madeline knew her father might not return for another

hour. She went thence to the long eating-room on the first floor, which

ran the full depth of the house, and had one window looking to the back

as well as several facing the courtyard. Here she opened the door of the

stove, and let the cheery glow play upon her.

Presently she grew tired of this, too, and moved to the rearward window.

It looked upon a narrow lane, and a dead wall. Still, there was a chance

of seeing some one pass, some stranger; whereas the windows which looked

on the empty courtyard were no windows at all--to Madeline.

The girl had not long looked out before her pale complexion, which the

fire had scarcely warmed, grew hot. She started, and glanced nervously

into the room behind her; then looked out again. She had seen, standing

in a nook of the wall opposite her, a figure she knew well. It was that

of her lover, and he seemed to be watching the house. Timidly she waved

her hand to him, and he, after looking up and down the lane, advanced

to the window. He could do this safely, for it was the only window in

the Toussaints' house which looked that way.

"Are you alone?" he whispered, looking up at her.

She nodded.

"And my sisters? I am here to learn what has become of them."

"Have gone to Philip Boyer's. He lives in one of the cottages on the

left of the Duchess's court."

"Ah! And you? Where is your father?" he murmured.

"He has gone to take them. I am alone; and two minutes ago I was

melancholy," she added, with a smile that should have made him happy.

"I want to talk to you," he replied. "May I climb up if I can,

Madeline?"

She shook her head, which of course meant, no. And she said, "It is

impossible." But she smiled; and that meant, yes. Or so he took it.

There was a pipe which ran up the wall a couple of feet or so on one

side of the casement. Before she understood his plan, or that he was in

earnest, he had gripped this, and was halfway up to the window.

"Oh, take care," she cried. "Do not come, Felix. Do not come. My father

will never forgive you!" Woman-like she repented, when it was too late.

But he did not listen, he came on, and when his hand was stretched out

to grasp the sill, all her fear was lest he should fall. She seized his

wrist, and helped him in. Then she drew back. "You should not have done

it, Felix," she said, drawing back from him with reproof in her eyes.

"But I wanted to see you so much," he urged, "and the glimpse I had of

you this morning was nothing."

"Well, you may come to the stove and warm yourself--a moment. Oh! how

cold your hands are, my poor boy! But you must not stay. Indeed you must

not!" And she cast terrified glances at the door.

But stolen moments are sweet and apt to be long drawn out. She had a

great deal to say, and he had a great deal it seemed to ask--so much to

ask indeed, that gradually a dim sense that he was asking about other

things than herself--about her father and the ways of the house, and

what guests they had, came over her.

It chilled her. She drew away from him, and said, suddenly, "Oh, Felix!"

and looked at him.

Nothing more. But he understood her and coloured; and tried to ask, but

asked awkwardly, "What is the matter?"

"I know of what you are thinking," she said with grave sorrow. "And it

is base of you, it is cruel! You would use even me whom you love--to

ruin my friends!"

"Hush!" he answered, letting his gloomy passion have vent for the

moment, "they are not your friends, Madeline. See what they have done

for me. It is they, or the troubles they have set on foot, that have

killed my father!" And he swore--carried away by his mistaken

resentment--never again to spare a Huguenot save her father and one

other.

She trembled and tried to close her ears. Her father had told her a

hundred times that she could not be happy with a husband divided from

her by a gulf so wide. She had said to him that it was too late. She had

given Felix her heart and she was a woman. She could not take it back,

though she knew that nothing but unhappiness could come of the match.

"God forgive you!" she cried in that moment of strained insight; and

sank in her chair as though she would weep.

He fell on his knees beside her with words of endearment; for he had

conquered himself again. And she let him soothe her, and would gladly

have believed him. She had never loved him more than now, when she knew

the price she must pay for him. She closed her eyes--for the moment--to

that terrible future, that certain future; and he was holding her in his

arms, when without warning a heavy footstep began to ascend the stairs.

They sprang apart. If even then he had had presence of mind, he might

have reached the window. But he hesitated, looking in her startled

eyes, and waiting. "Is it your father?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "He cannot have returned. We should have heard the

gates opened. There is no one in the house," she murmured faintly,

listening while she spoke.

But still the footsteps came on: and stopped at the door. Felix looked

round him with eyes of despair. Close beside him, just behind the stove,

was the door of a closet. He took two strides, and before he or she had

thought of the consequences, he was in the closet. Softly he drew the

door to again; and she sank terrified on a chair, as the door of the

room opened.

He who came in was not her father but a man of thirty-five, a stranger

to her. A man with a projecting chin. His keen grey eyes wore at the

moment of his entrance an expression of boredom and petulance, but when

he caught sight of her, this passed, as a cloud from the sky. He came

across the floor smiling. "Pardon me," he said--but said it as if no

pardon were needed, "I found the stables--insupportably dull. I set out

on a voyage of discovery. I have found my America!" And he bowed in a

style which puzzled the frightened girl.

"You want to see my father?" she stammered, "He----"

"He has gone to the Duchess's. I know it. And very ill-natured it was of

him to leave me in the stable, instead of entrusting me to your care,

mistress. La Noue," he continued, "is in the stable still, asleep on a

bundle of hay, and a pretty commotion there will be--when he finds I

have stolen away!"

Laughing with an easy carelessness that struck the citizen's daughter

with fresh astonishment, the stranger drew up the armchair, which was

commonly held sacred to M. Toussaint's use, and threw himself into it;

lazily disposing his booted feet in the glow which poured from the

stove, and looking across at his companion with admiration in his bold

eyes. At another time she might have been offended by the look: or she

might not. Women are variable. Now her fears lest Felix should be

discovered dulled her apprehension.

Yet the name of La Noue had caught her ear. She knew it well, as all

France and the Low Countries knew it in those days, for the name of one

of the boldest and stanchest soldiers on the Huguenot side.

"La Noue?" she murmured, misty suspicions beginning to take form in her

mind.

"Yes, pretty one," he replied, laughing. "La Noue and no other. Does

Bras-de-fer pass for an ogre here in Paris that you tremble so at his

name? Let me----"

But whatever the proposition he was going to offer, it came to nothing.

The dull clash of the gates outside warned both of them that Nicholas

Toussaint and his party had returned. A moment later a hasty tread

sounded on the stairs; and an elderly man wearing a cloak burst in upon

them.

His eyes swept the room while his hand still held the door; and it was

clear that what he saw did not please him. He came forward stiffly, his

brows knitted. But he said nothing; he seemed uncertain and embarrassed.

"See!" the first comer said, looking quietly up at him, but not offering

to move. "Now what do you think of your ogre? And by the rood he looks

fierce enough to eat babes! There, old friend," he continued, speaking

to the elder man in a different tone, "spare your lecture. This is

Toussaint's daughter, and as staunch I will warrant as her father."

The old noble--he had but one arm, she saw--still looked at her with

disfavour. "Girls have sweethearts, sire," he said shrewdly.

For a moment--at that word--the room seemed to go round with her. Though

something more of reproach and playful defence passed between the two

men, she heard not a syllable of it. The consciousness that her lover

was listening to every word, and that from this moment La Noue's life

was in his hands, numbed her brain. She sat helpless, hardly aware that

half a dozen men were entering, her father one of them. When a lamp was

called for--it was growing dark--she did not stir: and Toussaint, who

had not seen her, fetched it himself.

By the time he came back she had partly recovered her wits. She noted

that her father locked the door with care before he set the lamp on the

table. As its light fell on the harsh features of the men, a ray passed

between two of them, and struck her pale face. Her father saw her and

stared in astonishment.

"By heaven!" he cried. "What does the wench here?" No one answered; but

all turned and looked at her where she cowered back against the stove.

"Go, girl!" Toussaint cried, beside himself with passion. "Begone! and

presently I will deal with you!"

"Nay, stop!" La Noue interposed. "Your daughter knows too much. We

cannot let her go thus."

"Knows too much? How?" and the citizen tossed his head like a bull

balked in his charge. "What does she know?"

"His majesty----"

"Nay, let his majesty speak for himself--for once," said the man with

the grey eyes; and even in her terror and confusion Madeline saw that

all turned to him with a single movement. "Mistress Toussaint did but

chat with La Noue and myself, during her father's absence. True, she

knows us; or one of us. But if any be to blame it is I. Let her stay. I

will answer for her fidelity."

"Nay, but she is a woman, sire," some one objected.

"Ay, she is, good Poulain," and Henry turned to the speaker with a

singularly bright smile. "So we are safe; for there is no woman in

France would betray Henry of Bourbon!"

A laugh went round. Some one mentioned the Duchess.

"True!" said Henry, for Henry it was, he whom the Leaguers called the

Bearnais and the Politiques the King of Navarre, but whom later

generations have crowned as the first of French kings--Henry the Great.

"True! I had forgotten her. I must beware of her golden scissors. We

have two crowns already, and want not another of her making. But come,

let us to business without farther delay. Be seated, gentlemen; be

seated without ceremony: and while we consider whether our plans hold

good, Mistress Toussaint--" he paused and turned, to look kindly at the

terrified girl--"will play the sentry for us."

Madeline's presence within a few feet of their council-board was soon

forgotten by the eager men who sat round the table. And in a sense she

forgot them. She heard, it is true, their hopes and plans, of which the

chief, and that which brought them together to-day, was a scheme to

surprise Paris by introducing men hidden in carts laden with hay. She

heard how Henry and La Noue had entered, and who had brought them in,

and how it was proposed to smuggle them out again; and many details of

men and means and horses; and who were loyal and who disaffected, and

who might be bought over, and at what price. She even took note of the

manner of each speaker as he leaned forward, and brought his face within

the circle of light, marking who were known to her before, substantial

citizens these, constant at mass and market; and who were strangers, men

fiercer looking, thinner, haughtier, more restless, with the stamp of

constant peril at the corners of their eyes, and swords some inches

longer than their neighbours'.

She saw and heard all this, and more, and reasoned dully on it. But all

the time her mind was paralysed by the numbing sense of one great evil

awaiting her, of something with which she must presently come face to

face, though her faculties had not grasped it yet. Men's lives! Ah, yes,

men's lives! The girl had been bred a Huguenot. She had been taught to

revere the men of the religion, the men whose names were household

words; and not the weakness of the cause, not even her lover's

influence, had sapped her loyalty to it.

Presently there was a stir about the table. Some of the men rose. "Then

that arrangement meets your views, sire?" said La Noue.

"I think it is the better suggestion. Let it hold. I sleep to-night at

my good friend Mazeau's," the king answered, turning to the person he

named; "and leave to-morrow about noon by St. Martin's gate. That is

understood, is it? Then let it stand so."

He did not see--none of them saw--how the girl in the shadow by the

stove started; nor did they mark how the last trace of colour fled from

her cheeks. She was face to face with her fate now, and knew that her

own hand must work it out. The men were separating. Henry had risen and

was bidding farewell to one and another; until no more than four or five

beside Toussaint and La Noue remained with him. Then he prepared himself

to go, and girt on his sword, talking earnestly the while. Still engaged

in low converse with one of the strangers, he walked slowly, lighted by

his host to the door; he had forgotten to take leave of the girl. In

another minute he and they would have disappeared in the passage, when a

hoarse sound escaped from Madeline's lips.

It was not so much a cry as a groan, but it was enough for men whose

nerves were strained to the breaking point. All--at the moment they had

their backs to her, their faces to the king--turned swiftly. "Ha!" Henry

cried on the instant, "I had forgotten my manners. I was leaving my most

faithful sentry without a word of thanks, or a keepsake by which to

remember Henry of France."

She had risen, and was supporting herself--but she swayed as she

stood--by the arm of the chair. Never had her lover been so dear to

her; never had his faults seemed so small, his love so precious. As the

king approached, the light fell on her face, on her agonized eyes, and

he stopped short. "Toussaint!" he cried sharply, "your daughter is ill.

Look to her!" But it was noticeable that he laid his hand on his sword.

"Stay!" she cried, the word ringing shrilly through the room. "You are

betrayed! There is some one--there!" she pointed to the closet--"who has

heard--all! All! Oh, sire, mercy! mercy!"

As the last words passed the girl's writhing lips she clutched at her

throat: she seemed to fight a moment for breath, for life: then with a

stifled shriek fell in a swoon to the ground.

A second's silence. Then a whistling sound as half a dozen swords were

snatched from the scabbards. The veteran La Noue sprang to the door:

others ran to the windows and stood before them. Only Henry--after a

swift glance at Toussaint, who, pale and astonished, leaned over his

daughter--stood still, his fingers on his hilt. Another second of

suspense, and before any one spoke, the cupboard door swung slowly open,

and Felix Portail, pale to the lips, stood before them.

"What do you here?" cried Henry, restraining by a gesture those who

would have instantly flung themselves upon the spy.

"I came to see her," Felix said. He was quite calm, but a perspiration

cold as death stood on his brow, and his dilated eyes wandered from one

to another. "You surprised me. Toussaint knows--that I was her

sweetheart," he murmured.

"Ay, wretched man, you came to see her! And for what else?" Henry

replied, his eyes, as a rule, so kindly, bent on the other in a gaze

fixed and relentless.

A sudden visible quiver--as it were the agony of death--shot through

Portail's frame. He opened his mouth, but for a while no sound came. His

eyes sought the nearest sword with a horrid side-glance. "Kill me at

once," he gasped, "before she--before----"

He never finished the sentence. With an oath the nearest Huguenot lunged

at his breast, and fell back foiled by a blow from the king's hand.

"Back!" cried Henry, his eyes flashing as another sprang forward, and

would have done the work. "Will you trench on the King's justice in his

presence? Sheath your swords, all save the Sieur de la Noue, and the

gentlemen who guard the windows!"

"He must die!" several voices cried; and two men still pressed forward

viciously.

"Think, sire! Think what you do," cried La Noue himself, warning in his

voice. "He has in his hand the life of every man here! And they are your

men, risking all for the crown."

"True," Henry replied smiling; "but I ask no man to run a risk I will

not take myself."

A murmur of dissatisfaction burst forth. Several who had sheathed, drew

their swords again. "I have a wife and child!" cried one, bringing his

point to the thrust. "He dies!"

"He dies!" cried another following his example. And the two pressed

forward.

"He does not die!" exclaimed the King, his voice so ringing through the

room that all fell back once more; fell back not so much because it was

the king who spoke as in obedience to the voice which two years before

had rallied the flying squadrons at Arques, and years before that had

rung out hour after hour and day after day above the long street fight

of Cahors. "He does not die!" repeated Henry, looking from one to

another, with his chin thrust out, and his eyes glittering. "France

speaks, dare any contradict. Surely, my masters, there are no traitors

here!"

"Your majesty," said La Noue after a moment's pause, "commands our

lives."

"Thanks, Francis," Henry replied, instantly changing his tone. "And now

hear me, gentlemen. Think you that it was a light thing in this girl to

give up her lover? She might have let us go to our doom, and we none the

wiser! Would you take her gift and make her no requital? That were not

just! That were not royal! That cannot the King of France do! And now

for you, sir"--he turned with another manner to Felix, who was leaning

half-fainting against the wall--"hearken to me. You shall go free. I,

who this morning played the son to your dead father, I give you your

life for your sweetheart's sake. For her sake be true. You shall go out

alive and safe into the streets of Paris, which five minutes ago you

little thought to see again. The girl you love has ransomed you: go

therefore and be worthy of her. Or if I am wrong, if you still will

betray me--still go! Go to be damned to all eternity! Go, to leave a

name that shall live for centuries--and stand for treachery!"

He spoke the last words with such scorn that a murmur of applause broke

out even among those stern men. He took instant advantage of it. "Now

go!" he said hurriedly. "You can take the girl with you. She has but

fainted. A kiss will bring her to life. Go, and, as you love, be

silent."

The man took up his burden and went, trembling; still unable to speak.

But no hand was now raised to stop him.

When he had disappeared, La Noue turned to the king. "You will not now

sleep at Mazeau's, sire?"

Henry rubbed his chin. "Yes; let the plan stand," he answered after a

brief pause. "If he betray one, he shall betray all."

"But this is madness," La Noue urged.

The King shook his head, and smiling, clapped the veteran on the

shoulder. "Not so," he said. "The man is no traitor: I say it. And you

have never met with a longer head than Henry's."

"Never," assented La Noue bluntly, "save when there is a woman in it!"

* * * * *

The curtain falls. The men have lived and are dead. La Noue, the

Huguenot Bayard, now exists only in a dusty memoir and a page of Motley.

Madame de Montpensier is forgotten; all of her, save her golden

scissors. Mayenne, D'Aumale, a verse preserves their names. Only

Henry--the "good King," as generations of French peasants called

him--remains a living figure: his strength and weakness, his sins and

virtues, as well known, as thoroughly appreciated by thousands now as in

the days of his life.

It follows that we cannot hope to learn much of the fortunes of people

so insignificant--save for that moment when the fate of a nation hung on

their breath--as the Portails and Toussaints. We do know that Felix

proved worthy. For though the attack on Paris which was planned at

Toussaint's house, failed, it did not fail through treachery. And we

know that Felix married Madeline, and that Adrian won Marie: but no

more. Unless certain Portails now living in various parts of the world,

whose ancestors left France at the time of the Revocation of the Edict

of Nantes, are their descendants. And certainly it is curious that in

these families it is not rare to find the eldest son bearing the name of

Henry, and the second of Felix.

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

In the days when Henry the Fourth of France was as yet King of Navarre

only, and in that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the

south-western corner of the larger country, was with difficulty

supporting the Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic

League--in the days when every little moated town, from the Dordogne to

the Pyrenees, was a bone of contention between the young king and the

crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these

warring personages took place in the picturesque town of La Reole. And

great was the fame of it.

La Reole still rises grey, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff

above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from

Bordeaux. It is a small place now, but in the days of which we are

speaking it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded by a castle

which looked down on some hundreds of red-tiled roofs, rising in

terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it

was for the time as gay as Paris itself. Catherine had brought with her

a bevy of fair maids of honour, and trusted more perhaps in the effect

of their charms than in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful appearance

of the town was as delusive as the smooth bosom of the Gironde; for even

while every other house in its streets rang with music and silvery

laughter, each party was ready to fly to arms at a word if it saw that

any advantage could be gained thereby.

On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men were

seated at play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked

down from a considerable height upon the river. The hour was late; below

them the town lay silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on

sleeping fields, on vineyards, and dark far-spreading woods. Within the

room a silver lamp suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the

table, but left the farther parts of the chamber in shadow. The walls

were hung with faded tapestry, and on a low bedstead in one corner lay a

handsome cloak, a sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period.

Across a high-backed chair lay another cloak and sword, and on the

window seat, beside a pair of saddle-bags, were strewn half a dozen

trifles such as soldiers carried from camp to camp--a silver comfit-box,

a jewelled dagger, a mask, a velvet cap.

The faces of the players, as they bent over the cards, were in shadow.

One--a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin--and a mouth

that would have equally betrayed its weakness had it not been shaded by

a dark moustache--seemed, from the occasional oaths which he let drop,

to be losing heavily. Yet his opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a

sword-cut across his left temple, and the swaggering air that has at all

times marked the professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or

elation. On the contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal

word or two, there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in

his eyes; and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to

judge of his feelings or to learn whether the time had come for some

experiment which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in

through the window would have taken the two for that common

conjunction--the hawk and the pigeon.

At last the younger player threw down his cards with an exclamation.

"You have the luck of the evil one," he said, bitterly. "How much is

that?"

"Two thousand crowns," the other replied without emotion. "You will play

no more?"

"No! I wish to heaven I had never played at all!" was the answer. As he

spoke the loser rose, and moving to the window stood looking out. For a

few moments the elder man remained in his seat, gazing furtively at him;

at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his companion, he touched

him on the shoulder. "Your pardon a moment, M. le Vicomte," he said.

"Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum will inconvenience

you?"

"A thousand fiends!" the young gamester exclaimed, turning on him

wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would

not inconvenience? As for me----"

"For you," the other continued smoothly, filling up the pause, "shall I

be wrong in supposing that it means something like ruin?"

"Well, sir, and if it does?" the young man retorted; and he drew himself

up, his cheek a shade paler with passion. "Depend upon it you shall be

paid. Do not be afraid of that!"

"Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered, his patience in strong

contrast to the other's violence. "I had no intention of insulting you,

believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de Noirterre are not wont to

doubt his honour. I spoke only in your own interest. It has occurred to

me, Vicomte, that the matter may be arranged at less cost to yourself."

"How?" was the curt question.

"May I speak freely?" The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the other,

taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, Vicomte, are governor of

Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Creance, for the King of France.

Our towns lie but three leagues apart. Could I by any chance, say on one

of these fine nights, make myself master of Lusigny, it would be worth

more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you understand?"

"No," the young man answered slowly, "I do not."

"Think over what I have said, then," was the brief answer.

For a full minute there was silence in the room. The Vicomte gazed from

the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his companion,

seated near at hand, leant back in his chair, with an air of affected

carefulness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices told that the

watch were passing through the street. The church bell rang one o'clock.

Suddenly the Vicomte burst into a forced laugh, and, turning, took up

his cloak and sword. "The trap was well laid, M. le Capitaine," he said

almost jovially; "but I am still sober enough to take care of

myself--and of Lusigny. I wish you good night. You shall have your

money, do not fear."

"Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the Captain answered, as

he rose and moved towards the door to open it for his guest. And then,

when his hand was already on the latch, he paused. "My lord," he said,

"what do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you

have lost to me, and another thousand to boot--against your town. Oh, no

one can hear us. If you win you go off a free man with my thousand. If

you lose, you put me in possession--one of these fine nights. Now, that

is an offer. What do you say to it? A single game to decide."

The younger man's face reddened. He turned; his eyes sought the table

and the cards; he stood irresolute. The temptation came at an

unfortunate moment; a moment when the excitement of play had given way

to depression, and he saw nothing outside the door, on the latch of

which his hand was laid, but the bleak reality of ruin. The temptation

to return, the thought that by a single hand he might set himself right

with the world, was too much for him. Slowly--he came back to the table.

"Confound you!" he said passionately. "I think you are the devil

himself!"

"Don't talk child's talk!" the other answered coldly, drawing back as

his victim advanced. "If you do not like the offer you need not take

it."

But the young man was a born gambler, and his fingers had already closed

on the cards. Picking them up idly he dropped them once, twice, thrice

on the table, his eyes gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said

doubtfully. "What then? Let us have it quite clearly."

"You carry away a thousand crowns," the Captain answered quietly. "If

you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me

before next full moon. That is all."

"And what if I lose, and do not pay the forfeit?" the Vicomte asked,

laughing weakly.

"I trust to your honour," the Captain answered. And, strange as it may

seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his cause

and his trust, but the debt of honour incurred at play was binding on

him.

"Well," said the Vicomte, with a deep breath, "I agree. Who is to deal?"

"As you will," the Captain replied, masking under an appearance of

indifference the excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused the

pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.

"Then do you deal," said the Vicomte.

"With your permission," the Captain assented. And gathering the cards he

dealt them with a practised hand, and pushed his opponent's six across

to him.

The young man took up the hand and, as he sorted it, and looked from it

to his companion's face, he repressed a groan with difficulty. The

moonlight shining through the casement fell in silvery sheen on a few

feet of the floor. With the light something of the silence and coolness

of the night entered also, and appealed to him. For a few seconds he

hesitated. He made even as if he would have replaced the hand on the

table. But he had gone too far to retrace his steps with honour. It was

too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to

articulate, he played the first card.

He took that trick and the next: they were secure.

"And now," said the Captain, who knew well where the pinch came. "What

next?"

The Vicomte compressed his lips. Two courses were open to him. By

adopting one he could almost for certain win one more trick: by the

other he might just possibly win two tricks. He was a gamester; he

adopted the latter course. In half a minute it was over. He had lost!

The winner nodded gravely. "The luck is with me still," he said, keeping

his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had leapt into

them might not be seen. "When do you go back to your command, Vicomte?"

The unhappy man sat, as one stunned, his eyes on the painted cards which

had cost him so dearly. "The day after to-morrow," he muttered at last,

striving to collect himself.

"Then shall we say--the following evening?" the Captain asked

courteously.

The young man shivered. "As you will," he muttered.

"We quite understand one another," continued the winner, eyeing his man

watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. "I may depend on you, M. le

Vicomte, I presume--to keep your word?"

"The Noirterres have never been wanting to their word," the young

nobleman answered stung into passing passion. "If I live I will put

Lusigny into your hands, M. le Capitaine. Afterwards I will do my best

to recover it--in another way."

"I shall be most happy to meet you in that way," replied the Captain,

bowing lightly. And in one more minute, the door of his lodging had

closed on the other; and he was alone--alone with his triumph, his

ambition, his hopes for the future--alone with the greatness to which

his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step. He would enjoy that

greatness not a whit the less because fortune had hitherto dealt out to

him more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score

of years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.