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