their path the two--himself and his child--who could so
dispute it with them?

"Yet," he had mused all through that day, "how know it since I, of all
people, have no certain knowledge; how, above all, learn that their
opportunity had come? How know that I who stand between them and their
greed should pass upon their way, come across their path? Bah!" he
finally exclaimed, "it is a coincidence that I should so travel their
road, seek shelter in the house that my father's heir dwells in. It
may be that when I see this young De Roquemaure he shall in no way
resemble that night assassin who attacked me; it may be that his
mother no more dreams that she is about to see the son of the man she
loved than that she will ever see him again in life."

Yet, even as he so decided, he knew that there was more than
coincidence in it. He knew that those who had attacked him and Boussac
at Aignay-le-Duc were more than common bravos. Otherwise the child's
life would not have been sought as fiercely as his own; the spy,
whomsoever he might be, would not have ridden so many leagues from
Dijon to carry the news of his approach.

Therefore, in spite of his attempted dismissal of all his doubts and
suspicions, he resolved that, above all, he would be cautious as
regarded one thing--his child. She, at least, was under no orders to
seek shelter in the manoir; the roof that covered this marquise and
her stepson should never be slept under by Dorine.

"All women's hearts," he murmured, "go out to my motherless babe,
strangers though they be. There must be many such in this old city,
and one such I will find. If as--God help me!--I must suppose, this
she-wolf and her husband's son seek our lives, at least they shall get
no chance at hers. The mistress of a common inn, a warder's wife, will
keep her in greater safety than she may be under the roof-tree of
madame la marquise."

The gates of Troyes were not yet shut--the city having too much
traffic with the outlying hamlets to permit of their being closed
early--so that St. Georges rode in without any formalities beyond
replying to the usual questions as to who he was and what was his
business, and, passing slowly into the quaint streets, soon came to a
great _auberge_ which looked as though suitable for the purpose he
required, a shelter for the child. In the vast kitchen, or hall,
through whose diamond-paned windows he could see perfectly, he
perceived a young bare-armed woman cooking at a