To the Hôtel de Lorraine.

found M. Étienne sitting on the steps before the house. He had doffed his rusty black for a suit of azure and silver; his sword and poniard were heavy with silver chasings. His blue hat, its white plume pinned in a silver buckle, lay on the stone beside him. He had discarded his sling and was engaged in tuning a lute.

Evidently he was struck by some change in my appearance; for he asked at once:

"What has happened, Félix?"

"Such a lark!" I cried.

"What! did old Menard share the crowns with you for your trouble?"

"No; he pocketed them all. That was not it."

I was so choked with laughter as to make it hard work to explain what was it, while his first bewilderment changed to an amazed interest, which in its turn gave way, not to delight, but to distress.

"Mordieu!" he cried, starting up, his face ablaze, "if I resemble that dirt—"

"As chalk and cheese," I said. "No one seeing you both could possibly mistake you for two of the same race. But there was nothing in his catalogue that did not fit him. It mentioned, to be sure, the right arm in a sling; his was not, but he had his wrist bandaged. I think he cut himself last night when he was after me and I flung the door in his face, for afterward he held his hand behind his back. At any rate, there was the bandage; that was enough to satisfy the captain."

"And they took him off?"

"Truly. They gagged him because he protested so much, and lugged him off."

"To the Bastille?" he demanded, as if he could scarcely realize the event.

"To the Bastille. In a big travelling-coach, between the officer and his men. He may be there by this time."

He looked at me as if he were still not quite able to believe the thing.

"It is true, monsieur. If I were inventing it I could not invent anything better; but it is true."

"Certes, you could not invent anything better! Nor anything half so good. If ever there was a case of the biter bit—" he broke off, laughing.

"Monsieur, you know not half how funny it was. Had you seen their faces—the more Lucas swore he was not Comte de Mar, the more the officer was sure he was."

"Félix, you have all the luck. I said this morning you should go about no more without me. Then I send you off on a stupid errand, and see what you get into!"

"Monsieur, I put it to you: Had you been there, how could Lucas have been arrested for Comte de Mar?"

"He won't stay arrested long—more's the pity."

"No," I said regretfully; "but they may keep him overnight."

"Aye, he may be out of mischief overnight. I am happy to say that my face is not known at the Bastille."

"Nor his, I take it. I thought from what I heard last night that he had never been in Paris save for a while in the spring, when he lay perdu. At the Bastille they may know nothing of the existence of a Paul de Lorraine. But, monsieur, if Mayenne has broken his word already, if they are arresting you on this trumped-up charge, you must get out of the gates to-night."

"Impossible," he answered, smiling; "I have an engagement in Paris."

"But monsieur may not keep it. He must go to St. Denis."

"I must go nowhere but to the Hôtel Lorraine."

"Monsieur!"

"Why, look you, Félix; it is the safest spot for me in all Paris; it is the last place where they will look for me. Besides, now that they think me behind bars, they will not be looking for me at all. I shall be as safe as the hottest Leaguer in the camp."

"But in the hôtel-"

"Be comforted; I shall not enter the hôtel. There is a limit to my madness. No; I shall go softly around to a window in the side street under which I have often stood in the old days. She used to contrive to be in her chamber after supper."

"But, monsieur, how long is it since you were there last?"

"I think it must be two months. I had little heart for it after my father—So, you see, no one will be on the lookout for me to-night."

"Neither will mademoiselle," I made my point.

"I hope she may," he answered. "She will know I must see her to-night. And I think she will be at the window."

The reasoning seemed satisfactory to him. And I thought one wet blanket in the house was enough.

"Very well, monsieur. I am ready for anything you propose."

"Then I propose supper."

Afterward we played shovel-board, I risking the pistoles mademoiselle had given me. I won five more, for he paid little heed to what he was about, but was ever fidgeting over to the window to see if it was dark enough to start. At length, when it was still between dog and wolf, he announced that he would delay no longer.

"Very well, monsieur," I said with all alacrity.

"But you are not to come!"

"Monsieur!"

"Certainly not. I must go alone to-night."

"But, monsieur, you will need me. You will need some one to watch the street while you speak with mademoiselle."

"I can have no listener to-night," he replied immovably.

"But I will not listen, monsieur! I shall stand out of ear-shot. But you must have some one to give you warning should the guard set on you."

"I can manage my own affairs," he retorted haughtily; "I desire neither your advice nor your company."

"Monsieur!" I cried, almost in tears.

"Enough!" he bade sharply. "Go send me Vigo."

I went like one in whose face the doors of heaven had shut.

Vigo came at once from the guard-room at my summons. It was on my tongue to tell him of M. le Comte's mad resolve to fare forth alone; to beg him to stop it. But I remembered how blameworthy I myself had held the equery for interfering with M. Étienne, and I made up my mind that no word of cavil at my lord should ever pass my lips. I lagged across the court at Vigo's heels, silent.

M. Étienne was standing in the doorway.

"Vigo," he said, without a change of countenance, "get Félix a rapier, which he can use prettily enough. I cannot take him out to-night unarmed."

Vigo hesitated a moment, saluted, and went.

"Monsieur," I cried out, "you meant all the time to take me!"

He gazed down on my heated visage and laughed and laughed.

"Félix," he gasped, "you had your sport over there at the inn. But I have seen nothing this summer as funny as your face."

Vigo came back with a sword and baldric for me, and a horse-pistol besides, but M. Étienne would not let me have it.

"Circumstances are such, Vigo, that I want no noisy weapons."

The equery regarded him with a troubled countenance.

"I wish I knew, monsieur, whether I do right to let you go."

"We will not discuss that, an it please you."

"I do not, monsieur. I have no right to curtail M. le Comte's liberties. But I let you go with a heavy heart."

He looked after us with foreboding eyes as we went out of the great gate, alone, with not so much as a linkboy. But if his heart was heavy, our hearts were light. We paced along as merrily as though to a feast. M. Étienne hung his lute over his neck and strummed it; and whenever we passed under a window whence leaned a pretty head, he sang snatches of love-songs. We were alone in the dark streets of a hostile city, bound for the house of a mighty foe; and one of us was wounded and one a tyro. Yet we laughed as we went; for there was Lucas languishing in prison, and here were we, free as air, steering our course for mademoiselle's window. One of us was in love, and the other wore a sword for the first time, and all the power of Mayenne daunted us not.

We came at length within bow-shot of the Hôtel de Lorraine, where M. Étienne was willing to abate somewhat his swagger. We left the Rue St. Antoine, creeping around behind the house through a narrow and twisting alley—it was pitch-black, but he knew the way well—into a little street dim-lighted from the windows of the houses upon it. It was only a few rods long, running from the open square in front of the hôtel to the network of unpaved alleys behind. On the farther side stood a row of high-gabled houses, their doors opening directly on the pavement; on this side was but one big pile, the Hôtel de Lorraine. The wall was broken by few windows, most of them dark; this was not the gay side of the house. The overhanging turret on the low second story, under which M. Étienne halted, was as dark as the rest, nor, though the casement was open wide, could we tell whether any one was in the room. We could hear nothing but the breeze crackling in the silken curtains.

"Take your station at the corner there," he bade, "and shout if they seem to be coming for us. But I think we shall not be molested. My fingers are so stiff they will hardly recognize my hand on the strings."

I went to my post, and he began singing, scarce loud enough for any but his lady above to mark him:

The music paused, and I turned from my watch of the shadowy figures crossing the square, in instant alarm lest something was wrong. But whatever startled him ceased, for in a moment he went on again, and as he sang his voice rang fuller:

He stopped again and stood gazing up into the window, but whether he saw something or heard something I could not tell. Apparently he was not sure himself, for presently, a little tremulous, he added the four verses:

He doffed his hat, pushing back the hair from his brow, and waited, eager, hopeful. There was a little stir in the room that one thought was not the wind.

I had come unconsciously half-way up the street to him in the ardour of my interest; but now I was startled back to my duty by the sound of men running round the corner behind me. One glance was enough; two abreast, swords in hand, they were charging us. I ran before them, drawing blade as I went and shouting to M. Étienne. But even as I called an answering shout came from the alley; two men of the Spanish guards shot out of the darkness and at us.

M. Étienne, with his extraordinary quickness, had got the lute off his neck, and now, for want of a better use of it, flung it at the head of his nearest assailant, who received it full in the face, stopped, hesitated a moment, and ran back the way he had come. But three foes remained, with the whole Hôtel de Lorraine behind them.

We put our backs to the wall and set to. The remaining Spaniard engaged me; M. Étienne, protected somewhat in the embrasure of a doorway, held at bay with his good left arm a pair of attackers. These were in the dress of gentlemen, and wore masks as if their cheeks blushed (well they might) for the deeds of their hands.

A broad window in the Hôtel de Lorraine was flung open; a man leaned far out with a torch. The bright glare in our faces bewildered our gloom-accustomed eyes; I could not see what I was about, and rammed my point against my Spaniard's hilt, snapping my blade.

The sudden impact sent him stumbling back a pace, and M. Étienne, who, with the quick eye of the born fencer, saw everything, cried to me, "Here!"

I darted back into the doorway beside him. His two assailants finding that they gained nothing by their joint attack, but rather hampered each other, one dropped back to watch his comrade, the cleverer swordsman. This was decidedly a man of talent, but he was shorter in the arm than my master and had the disadvantage of standing on the ground, whereas M. Étienne was up one step. He could not force home any of his shrewd-planned thrusts; nor could he drive M. Étienne out of his coign to where in the open the two could make short work of him. The rapiers clashed and parted and twisted about each other and flew apart again; and then before I could see who was touched the attacker fell to his knees, with M. Étienne's sword in his breast.

M. Étienne wrenched the blade out; the wounded man sank backward, his mask-string breaking. He was the one whom I had thought him—François de Brie.

M. Étienne was ready for the second gentleman, but neither he nor the soldier attacked. The torch-bearer in the window, with a shout, waved his arm toward the square. A mob of armed men hurled itself around the corner, a pikeman with lowered point in the van.

This was not combat; it was butchery. M. Étienne, with a little moan, lifted his eyes for the first time from his assailant to the turret window. In the same instant I felt the door behind us give. Throwing my whole weight upon it, I seized M. Étienne and pulled him over the threshold. Some one inside slammed the door to, just as the Spaniard hurled himself against it.

"On guard, monsieur."

e found ourselves in a narrow panelled passageway, lighted by a flickering oil-lamp pendent from a bracket. Confronting us was our preserver—a little old lady in black velvet, leaning back in chuckling triumph against the shot bolts.

She was very small and very old. Her figure was bent and shrunken, a pitiful little bag of bones in a rich dress; her hair was as white as her ruff; her skin as yellow and dry as parchment, furrowed with a thousand wrinkles; but her black eyes sparkled like a girl's.

"I did not mean to let my nightingale's throat be slit," she cried in a shrill voice quavering like a young child's. "I have listened to your singing many a night, monsieur; I was glad to-night to find the nightingale back again. When I saw that crew rush at you, I said I would save you if only you would put your back to my door. Monsieur, you are a young man of intelligence."

"I am a young man of amazing good fortune, madame," M. Étienne replied, with his handsomest bow, sheathing his wet blade. "I owe you a debt of gratitude which is ill repaid in the base coin of bringing trouble to this house."

"Not at all—not at all!" she protested with animation. "No one is likely to molest this house. It is the dwelling of M. Ferou."

"Of the Sixteen?"

"Of the Sixteen," she nodded, her shrewd face agleam with mischief. "In truth, if my son were within, you were little likely to find harbourage here. But, as it is, he and his wife are supping with his Grace of Lyons. And the servants are one and all gone to mass, leaving madame grand'mère to shift for herself. No, no, my good friends; you may knock till you drop, but you won't get in."

The attacking party was indeed hammering energetically on the door, shouting to us to open, to deny them at our peril. The eyes of the old lady glittered with new delight at every rap.

"I fancy they will think twice before they batter down M. Ferou's door! Ma foi! I fancy they are a little mystified at finding you sanctuaried in this house. Was it not my Lord Mayenne's jackal, François de Brie?"

"Yes; and Marc Latour."

"I thought I knew them," she cried in evident pride at her sharpness. "It was dark, and they were masked, and my eyes are old, but I knew them! And which of the ladies is it?"

He could do no less than answer his saviour.

"Ah, well," she said, with a little sigh, "I too once—but that is a long time ago." Then her eyes twinkled again; I trow she was not much given to sighing. "That is a long time ago," she repeated briskly, "and now they think I am too old to do aught but tell my beads and wait for death. But I like to have a hand in the game."

"I will come to take a hand with you any time, madame," M. Étienne assured her. "I like the way you play."

She broke into shrill, delighted laughter.

"I'll warrant you do! And I don't mean to do the thing by halves. No; I shall save you, hide and hair. Be so kind, my lad, as to lift the lantern from the hook."

I did as she bade me, and we followed her down the passage like spaniels. She was so entirely equal to the situation that we made no protests and asked no questions. At the end of the hall she paused, opening neither the door on the right nor the door on the left, but, passing her hand up one of the panels of the wainscot, suddenly she flung it wide.

"You are not so small as I," she chuckled, "yet I think you can make shift to get through. You, monsieur lantern-bearer, go first."

I doubled myself up and scrambled through. The old lady, gathering her petticoats daintily, followed me without difficulty, but M. Étienne was put to some trouble to bow his tall head low enough. We stood at the top of a flight of stone steps descending into blackness. The old lady unhesitatingly tripped down before us.

At the foot of the stairs was a vaulted stone passageway, slippery with lichen, the dampness hanging in beads on the wall. Turning two corners, we brought up at a narrow, nail-studded door.

"Here I bid you farewell," quoth the little old lady. "You have only to walk on till you get to the end. At the steps, pull the rope once and wait. When he opens to you, say, 'For the Cause,' and draw a crown with your finger in the air."

"Madame," M. Étienne cried, "I hope the day may come when I shall make you suitable acknowledgements. My name—"

"I prefer not to know it," she interrupted, glancing up at him. "I will call you M. Yeux-gris; that is enough. As for acknowledgments—pooh! I am overpaid in the sport it has been."

"But, madame, when monsieur your son discovers—"

"Mon dieu! I am not afraid of my son or of any other woman's son!" she cried, with cackling laughter. And I warrant she was not.

"Madame," M. Étienne said, "I trust we shall meet again when I shall have time to tell you what I think of you." He dropped on his knees before her, kissing both her hands.

"Yes, yes, of course you are grateful," she said, somewhat bored apparently by his demonstration. "Naturally one does not like to die at your age. I wish you a pleasant journey, M. Yeux-gris, and you too, you fresh-faced boy. Give me back my lantern and fare you well."

"You will let us see you safe back in your hall."

"I will do nothing of the sort! I am not so decrepit, thank you, that I cannot get up my own stairs. No, no; no more gallantries, but get on your way! Begone with you! I must be back in my chamber working my altar-cloth when my daughter-in-law comes home."

Crowing her elfin laugh, she pulled the door open and fairly hustled us through.

"Good-by—you are fine boys"; and she slammed the door upon us. We were in absolute darkness. As we took our first breath of the dank, foul air, we heard bolts snap into place.

"Well, since we cannot go back, let us go forward," said M. Étienne, cheerfully. "I am glad she has bolted the door; it is to throw them off the scent should they track us."

I knew very well that he was not at all glad; that the same thought which chilled my blood had come to him. This little beldam, with her beady eyes and her laughter, was the wicked witch of our childhood days; she had shut us up in a charnel-house to die.

I heard him tapping the pavement before him with his scabbard, using it as a blind man's staff. And so we advanced through the fetid gloom, the passage being only wide enough to let us walk shoulder to shoulder. There was a whirring of wings about us, and a squeaking; once something swooped square into my face, knocking a cry of terror from me, and a laugh from him.

"What was it? a bat? Cheer up, Félix; they don't bite." But I would not go on till I had made sure, as well as I could without seeing, that the cursed thing was not clinging on me somewhere.

We walked on then in silence, the stone walls vibrant with our tread. We went on till it seemed we had traversed the width of Paris; and I wondered who were sleeping and feasting and scheming and loving over our heads. M. Étienne said at length:

"Mordieu! I hope this snake-hole does not empty us out into the Seine." But I thought that as long as it emptied us out somewhere, I should not greatly mind the Seine.

At this very moment M. Étienne clutched my arm, jerking me to a halt. I bounded backward, trying in the blackness to discern a precipice yawning at my feet. "Look!" he cried in a low, tense voice. I perceived, far before us in the gloom, a point of light, which, as we watched it, grew bigger and bigger, till it became an approaching lantern.

"This is like to be awkward," murmured M. Étienne.

The man carrying the light came on with firm, heavy tread; naturally he did not see us as soon as we saw him. I thought him alone, but it was hard to tell in this dark, echoy place.

He might easily have approached within touch of my sad clothing without becoming aware of me, but M. Étienne's azure and white caught the lantern rays a rod away. The newcomer stopped short, holding up the light between us and his face. We could make nothing of him, save that he was a large man, soberly clad.

"Who is it?" he demanded, his voice ringing out loud and steady. "Is it you, Ferou?"

M. Étienne hooked his scabbard in place, and went forward into the clear circle of light.

"No, M. de Mayenne; it is Étienne de Mar."

"Ventre bleu!" Mayenne ejaculated, changing his lantern with comical alacrity to his left hand, and whipping out his sword. My master's came bare, too, at that. They confronted each other in silence, till Mayenne's ever-increasing astonishment forced the cry from him:

"How the devil come you here?"

"Evidently by way of M. Ferou's house," M. Étienne answered. Mayenne still stared in thick amazement; after a moment my master added: "I must in justice say that M. Ferou is not aware that I am using this passage; he is, with madame his wife, supping with the Archbishop of Lyons."

M. Étienne leaned his shoulder against the wall, smiling pleasantly, and waiting for the duke to make the next move. Mayenne kept a nonplussed silence. The situation was indeed somewhat awkward. He could not come forward without encountering an agile opponent, whose exceeding skill with the sword was probably known to him. He could not turn tail, had his dignity allowed the course, without exposing himself to be spitted. He was in the predicament of the goat on the bridge. Yet was he gaping at us less in fear, I think, than in bewilderment. This Ferou, as I learned later, was one of his right-hand men, years-long supporter. Mayenne had as soon expected to meet a lion in the tunnel as to meet a foe. He cried out again upon us, with an instinctive certainty that a great prince's question must be answered:

"How came you here?"

"I don't ask," said M. Étienne, "how it happens that M. le Duc is walking through this rat-hole. Nor do I feel disposed to make any explanation to him."

"Very well, then," said Mayenne; "our swords, if you are ready, will make adequate explanation."

"Now, that is gallant of you," returned M. Étienne, "as it is evident that the closeness of these walls will inconvenience your Grace more than it will me."

The walls of the passage were roughly laid. Mayenne perched his lantern on a projecting stone.

"On guard, sir," he answered.

The silence was profound. Mayenne had no companion following him. He was alone with his sword. He was not now head of the state, but only a man with a sword, standing opposite another man with a sword. Nor was he in the pink of form. Though he gave the effect, from his clear colour and proud bearing, perhaps also from his masterful energy, of tremendous force and strength, his body was in truth but a poor machine, his great corpulence making him clumsy and scant of breath. He must have known, as he eyed his supple antagonist, what the end would be. Yet he merely said:

"On guard, monsieur."

M. Étienne did not raise his weapon. I retreated a pace, that I might not be in the way of his jump, should Mayenne spring on him. M. Étienne said slowly:

"M. de Mayenne, this encounter was none of my contriving. Nor have I any wish to cross swords with you. Family quarrels are to be deprecated. Since I still intend to become your cousin, I must respectfully beg to be released from the obligation of fighting you."

A man knowing himself overmatched cannot refuse combat. He may, even as Mayenne had done, think himself compelled to offer it. But if he insists on forcing battle with a reluctant adversary, he must be a hothead indeed. And Mayenne was no hothead. He stood hesitant, feeling that he was made ridiculous in accepting the clemency and should be still more ridiculous to refuse it. He half lifted his sword, only to lower it again, till at last his good sense came to his relief in a laugh.

"M. de Mar, it appears that, after all, some explanations are necessary. You think that in declining to fight you put me in your debt. Possibly you are right. But if you expect that in gratitude I shall hand over Lorance de Montluc, you were never more mistaken. Never, while I live, shall she marry into the king's camp. Now, monsieur, that we understand each other, I abide by your decision whether we fight or not."

For answer, M. Étienne put up his blade. The Duke of Mayenne, saluting with his, did the like. "Mar," he said, "you stood off from us, like a coquetting girl, for three years. At length, last May, you refused point-blank to join us. I do not often ask a man twice, but I ask you. Will you join the League to-night, and marry Lorance to-morrow?"

No man could have spoken with a franker grace. I believe then, I believe now, he meant it. M. Étienne believed he meant it.

"Monsieur," he answered, "I have shilly-shallied long; but I am planted squarely at last with my father on the king's side. You put your interesting nephew into my father's house to kill him; I shall not sign myself with the League."

"In that case," returned Mayenne, "perhaps we might each continue on his way."

"With all my heart, monsieur."

Each drew back against the wall to let the other pass, with a wary eye for daggers. Then M. Étienne, laughing a little, but watching Mayenne like a lynx, started to go by. The duke, seeing the look, suddenly raised his hands over his head, holding them there while both of us squeezed past him.

"Cousin Charles," said M. Étienne, "I see that when I have married Lorance you and I shall get on capitally. Till then, God have you ever in guard."

"I thank you, monsieur. You make me immortal."

"I have no need to make you witty. M. de Mayenne, when you have submitted to the king, as you will one of these days, I shall have as delightful a kinsman as heart of man could wish. You and I will yet drink a loving-cup together. Till that happy hour, I am your good enemy. Fare you well, monsieur."

He bowed; the duke, half laughing despite a considerable ire, returned the obeisance with all pomp. M. Étienne took me by the arm and departed. Mayenne stood still for a space; then we heard his retreating footsteps, and the glimmer of his light slowly faded away.

A chance encounter.

he street before us was as orderly as the aisle of Notre Dame. Few way-farers passed us; those there were talked together as placidly as if love-trysts and mêlées existed not, and tunnels and countersigns were but the smoke of a dream. It was a street of shops, all shuttered, while, above, the burghers' families went respectably to bed.

"This is the Rue de la Ferronnerie," my master said, pausing a moment to take his bearings. "See, under the lantern, the sign of the Pierced Heart. The little shop is in the Rue de la Soierie. We are close by the Halles—we must have come half a mile underground. Well, we'll swing about in a circle to get home. For this night I've had enough of the Hôtel de Lorraine."

And I. But I held my tongue about it, as became me.

"They were wider awake than I thought—those Lorrainers. Pardieu! Féix, you and I came closer quarters with death than is entirely amusing."

"If that door had not opened-" I shuddered.

"A new saint in the calendar—la Sainte Ferou! But what a madcap of a saint, then! My faith, she must have led them a dance when Francis I was king!

"Natheless it galls me," he went on, half to himself, "to know that I was lost by my own folly, saved by pure chance. I underrated the enemy—worst mistake in the book of strategy. I came near flinging away two lives and making a most unsightly mess under a lady's window."

"Monsieur made somewhat of a mess as it was."

"Aye. I would I knew whether I killed Brie. We'll go round in the morning and find out."

"I am thankful that monsieur does not mean to go to-night."

"Not to-night, Félix; I've had enough. No; we'll get home without passing near the Hôtel de Lorraine, if we go outside the walls to do it. To-night I draw my sword no more."

To this day I have no quite clear idea of how we went. A strange city at night—Paris of all cities—is a labyrinth. I know that after a time we came out in some meadows along the river-bank, traversed them, and plunged once more into narrow, high-walled streets. It was very late, and lights were few. We had started in clear starlight, but now a rack of clouds hid even their pale shine.

"The snake-hole over again," said M. Étienne. "But we are almost at our own gates."

But, as in the snake-hole, came light. Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight into a gentleman and his porte-flambeau, swinging along at as smart a pace as we.

"A thousand pardons," M. Étienne cried to his encounterer, the possessor of years and gravity but of no great size, whom he had almost knocked down. "I heard you, but knew not you were so close. We were speeding to get home."

The personage was also of a portliness, and the collision had knocked the wind out of him. He leaned panting against the wall. As he scanned M. Étienne's open countenance and princely dress his alarm vanished.

"It is unseemly to go about on a night like this without a lantern," he said with asperity. "The municipality should forbid it. I shall certainly bring the matter up at the next sitting."

"Monsieur is a member of the Parliament?" M. Étienne asked with immense respect.

"I have that honour, monsieur," the little man replied, delighted to impress us, as he himself was impressed, by the sense of his importance.

"Oh," said M. Étienne, with increasing solemnity, "perhaps monsieur had a hand in a certain decree of the 28th June?"

The little man began to look uneasy.

"There was, as monsieur says, a measure passed that day," he stammered.

"A rebellious and contumacious decree," M. Étienne rejoined, "most offensive to the general-duke." Whereupon he fingered his sword.

"Monsieur," the little deputy cried, "we meant no offence to his Grace, or to any true Frenchman. We but desire peace after all these years of blood. We were informed that his Grace was angry; yet we believed that even he will come to see the matter in a different light—"

"You have acted in a manner insulting to his Grace of Mayenne," M. Étienne repeated inexorably, and he glanced up the street and down the street to make sure the coast was clear. The wretched little deputy's teeth chattered.

The linkman had retreated to the other side of the way, where he seemed on the point of fleeing, leaving his master to his fate. I thought it would be a shame if the badgered deputy had to stumble home in the dark, so I growled out to the fellow:

"Stir one step at your peril!"

I was afraid he would drop the flambeau and run, but he did not; he only sank back against the wall, eyeing my sword with exceeding deference. He knew not that there was but a foot of blade in the scabbard.

The burgher looked up the street and down the street, after M. Étienne's example, but there was no help to be seen or heard. He turned to his tormentor with the valour of a mouse at bay.

"Monsieur, beware what you do. I am Pierre Marceau!"

"Oh, you are Pierre Marceau? And can M. Pierre Marceau explain how he happened to be faring forth from his dwelling at this unholy hour?"

"I am not faring forth; I am faring home. I—we had a little con—that is, not to say a conference, but merely a little discussion on matters of no importance—"

"I have the pleasure," interrupted M. Étienne, sternly, "of knowing where M. Marceau lives. M. Marceau's errand in this direction is not accounted for."

"But I was going home—on my sacred honour I was! Ask Jacques, else. But as we went down the Rue de l'Évêque we saw two men in front of us. As they reached the wall by M. de Mirabeau's garden a gang of footpads fell on them. The two drew blades and defended themselves, but the ruffians were a dozen—a score. We ran for our lives."

M. Étienne wheeled round to me.

"Félix, here is work for us. As I was saying, M. Marceau, your decree is most offensive to the general-duke, and therefore, since he is my particular enemy, most pleasing to me. A beautiful night, is it not, sir? I wish you a delightful walk home."

He seized me by the hand, and we dashed up the street.

At the corner the noise of a fray came faintly but plainly to our ears. M. le Comte without hesitation plunged down a lane in the direction of the sound.

"I said I wanted no more fighting to-night, but two against a mob! We know how it feels."

The clash of steel on steel grew ever louder, and as we wheeled around a jutting garden wall we came full upon the combatants.

"A rescue, a rescue!" cried M. Étienne. "Shout, Félix! Montjoie St. Denis! A rescue, a rescue!"

We charged down the street, drawing our swords and shouting at the top of our lungs.

It was too dark to see much save a mass of struggling figures, with every now and then, as the steel hit, a point of light flashing out, to fade and appear again like a brilliant glow-worm. We could scarce tell which were the attackers, which the two comrades we had come to save.

But if we could not make them out, neither could they us. We shouted as boldly as if we had been a company, and in the clatter of their heels on the stones they could not count our feet. They knew not how many followers the darkness held. The group parted. Two men remained in hot combat close under the left wall. Across the way one sturdy fighter held off two, while a sixth man, crying on his mates to follow, fled down the lane.

M. Étienne knew now what he was about, and at once took sides with the solitary fencer. The combat being made equal, I started in pursuit of the flying figure. I had run but a few yards, however, when I tripped and fell prostrate over the body of a man. I was up in a moment, feeling him to find out if he were dead; my hands over his heart dipped into a pool of something wet and warm like new milk. I wiped them on his sleeve as best I could, and hastily groped about for his sword. He did not need it now, and I did.

When I rose with it my quarry was swallowed up in the shadows. M. Étienne, whose light clothing made a distinguishable spot in the gloom, had driven his opponent, or his opponent had driven him, some rods up the lane the way we had come. I stood perplexed, not knowing where to busy myself. M. Étienne's side I could not reach past the two duels; and of the four men near me, I could by no means tell, as they circled about and about, which were my chosen allies. They were all sombrely clad, their faces blurred in the darkness. When one made a clever pass, I knew not whether to rejoice or despair. But at length I picked out one who fenced, though valiantly enough, yet with greater effort than the rest; and I deemed that this had been the hardest pressed of all and must certainly be one of the attacked and the one most deserving of succour. He was plainly losing ground. I darted to his side just as his foe ran him through the arm.

The assailant pulled his blade free and darted back against the wall to face the two of us. But the sword of the wounded man fell from his loose fingers.

"I'm out of it," he cried to me; "I go for aid." And as his late combatant sprang forward to engage me, I heard him running off, stumbling where I had.

There had been little light toward the last in the court of the house in the Rue Coupejarrets, and less under the windows of the Hôtel de Lorraine; but here was none at all, I had to use my sword solely by the feel of his against it, and I underwent chilling qualms lest presently, without in the least knowing how it got there, I should find his point sticking out of my back. I could hardly believe he was not hitting me; I began to prickle in half a dozen places, and knew not whether the stings were real or imaginary. But one was not imaginary; my shoulder which Lucas had pinked and the doctor bandaged was throbbing painfully. I fancied that in my earlier combat the wound had opened again and that I was bleeding to death; and the fear shook me. I lunged wildly, and I had been sent to my account in short order had not at this moment one of the other pair near us, as it afterward appeared, driven his weapon square through his vis-à-vis's breast.

"I am done for. Run who can!" he cried as he fell. The sword snapped in two against the paving-stones; he rolled over and lay still, his face in the dirt.

My encounterer, with a shout to his single remaining comrade, made off down the lane. On my part, I was very willing to let him depart in peace.

The clash of swords up the lane had ceased at the stricken man's cry, and out of the gloom came the sound of footfalls fainter and fainter. I deemed that the battle was over.

The champion came toward me, three white patches visible for his face and hands; the rest of him but darkness moving in darkness. He held a sword rifled from the enemy, and advanced on me hesitatingly, not sure whether friend or foe remained to him. I felt that an explanation was due from me, but in my ignorance as to who he was and who his foes were, and why they had been fighting him and why we had been fighting them, I stood for a moment confused. It is hard to open conversation with a shadow.

He spoke first, in a voice husky from his exertion:

"Who are you?"

"A friend," I said. "My master and I saw two men fighting four—we came to help the weaker side. Your friend was hurt, but he got away safe to fetch aid."

The unknown made a rapid step toward me, crying, "What—"

But at the word M. Étienne emerged from the shadows.

"Who lives?" he called out. "You, Félix?"

"Not hurt, monsieur. And you?"

"Not a scratch. Nor did I scratch my man. Permit me to congratulate you, monsieur l'inconnu, on our coming up when we did."

The unknown said one word:

"Étienne!"

I sprang forward with the impulse to throw my arms about him, in the pure rapture of recognizing his voice. This struggler, whom we had rushed in, blindfold, to save, was Monsieur! If we had been content to mind our own business, had sheered away like the deputy—it turned me faint to think how long we had delayed with old Marceau, we were so nearly too late. I wanted to seize Monsieur, to convince myself that he was all safe, to feel him quick and warm.

I made one pace and stopped; for I remembered what ghastly shape stood between me and Monsieur—that horrible lying story.

"Dieu!" gasped M. Étienne, "Monsieur!"

For a moment we all kept silence, motionless; then Monsieur flung his sword over the wall.

"Do your will, Étienne."

His son darted forward with a cry.

"Monsieur, Monsieur, I am not your assassin! I came to your aid not dreaming who you were; but, had I known, I would have fought a hundred times the harder. I never plotted against you. On the honour of a St. Quentin I swear it."

Monsieur said naught, and we could not see his face; could not know whether he believed or rejected, softened or condemned.

M. Étienne, catching at his breath, went on:

"Monsieur, I know it is hard to credit. I have been a bad son to you, unloving, rebellious, insolent. We quarrelled; I spoke bitter words. But I am no ruffian. I am a St. Quentin. Had you had me whipped from the house, still would I never have raised hand against you. I knew nothing of the plot. Félix told you I was in it—small blame to him. But he was wrong. I knew naught of it."

Had he been content to rest his case here, I think Monsieur could not but have believed his innocence on his bare word. The stones in the pavement must have known that he was uttering truth. But he in his eagerness paused for no answer, but went on to stun Monsieur with statements new and amazing to his ear.

"My cousin Grammont—who is dead—was in the plot, and his lackey Pontou, and Martin the clerk; but the contriver was Lucas."

"Lucas?"

"Lucas," continued M. Étienne. "Or, to give him his true title, Paul de Lorraine, son of Henri de Guise."

"But that is impossible" Monsieur cried, stupefied.

"It is impossible, but it is true. He is a Lorraine—Mayenne's nephew, and for years Mayenne's spy. He came to you to kill you—for that object pure and simple. Last spring, before he came to you, he was here in Paris with Mayenne, making terms for your murder. He is no Huguenot, no Kingsman. He is Mayenne's henchman, son to Guise himself."

"And how long have you known this?" asked Monsieur.

"Since this morning." Then, as the import of the question struck him, he fell back with a groan. "Ah, Monsieur, if you can ask that, I have no more to say. It is useless." He turned away into the darkness.

That they should part thus was too miserable to be endured. I was sure Monsieur's question was no accusation, but the groping of bewilderment.

"M. Étienne, stop!" I commanded. "Monsieur, it is the truth. Indeed it is the truth. He is innocent, and Lucas is a Guise. Monsieur, you must listen to me. M. Étienne, you must wait. I stirred up the whole trouble with my story to you, Monsieur, and I take it back. I believed I was telling the truth. I was wrong. When I left you, I went straight back to the Rue Coupejarrets to kill your son—your murderer, I thought. And there I found Grammont and Lucas side by side. We thought them sworn foes: they were hand in glove. They came at me to end me because I had told, and M. Étienne saved me. Lucas mocked him to his face because he had been tricked; Lucas bragged that it was his own scheme—that M. Étienne was his dupe. Vigo will tell you. Vigo heard him. His scheme was to saddle M. Étienne with your murder. He was tricked. He believed what he told me—that the thing was a duel between Lucas and Grammont. You must believe it, Monsieur!"

M. Étienne, who had actually obeyed me,—me, his lackey,—turned to his father once again.

"Monsieur, if you cannot believe me, believe Félix. You believed him when he took away my good name. Believe him now when he restores it."

"Nay," Monsieur cried; "I believe thee, Étienne."

And he took his son in his arms.

The signet of the king.