suspicion as to the
actual truth, I felt that the Abbe's plans boded me no good. I was
like a person groping in the darkness, and expecting every moment to
fall into a deep pit.

"Can't you wait?" Maubranne had asked.

For what was Peleton to wait? And how could it affect me? Why should
the fellow's temper spoil everything? From Maubranne's words it
appeared that the success of their scheme, whatever it was, depended on
me. Yet from the very beginning I had fought them tooth and nail.

"This business will drive me crazy," I muttered, "it is worse than the
muddle at La Boule d'Or. Both these blackguards would gladly give me a
few inches of steel, and yet, having me wholly in their power, they do
me no injury. It is evident that I, in some manner, am to further the
interests of their party. Am I to be offered a bribe?"

This was making myself out to be a person of some consequence, but I
could think of nothing else. However, it was useless to stand there
all night, so, keeping a keen look-out for fresh danger, I hurried from
the court and made straight for the Pont Neuf. A few night-birds were
abroad, but I passed on swiftly, keeping well within the shadow of the
walls.

As it chanced, the night's adventures were not finished even yet.
Turning into the Rue des Carolines, I was almost at home, when a man,
slipping from the shadow of a doorway, swung a lantern in my face.
Peleton's cowardly attack had put me on my guard, and in less than a
second my sword was at the fellow's throat.

He was either very stupid or very brave.

"M. de Lalande?" said he quietly, and, thrusting a folded paper into my
hand, vanished.

I ran a few yards hoping to catch him, but he was soon swallowed up in
the darkness, and there was nothing for it but to return. In my room I
opened the packet with nervous haste. The letter, or rather note,
consisted of only a few words, and had no signature. I gazed at the
writing curiously, it was cramped, partly illegible, and in a man's
hand. By supplying a letter here and there I managed to piece together
the strange message.

"When the net is spread openly, only a foolish bird will be ensnared.
A wise one will fly away. An old story relates how a swallow once
found safety in the tents of an army."

Nothing more! I read it through again and again till I had learned
every word by heart. Who wrote it? I knew not. I counted no friends
among the enemy, and danger was hardly likely