lt of all knots to untie, the hardest of all the mystery to be
solved. For, arrived so far in his endeavours to unwind the plot with
which he was surrounded, he found himself at fault, groping
helplessly in the dark, when he stood face to face with the memory of
the man who had been assassinated by De Roquemaure's vassal--face to
face with Pierre, the Bishop of Lodeve's servant, who at the time he
was set upon was in possession of Dorine!

One thought alone rose to his mind at first, one only which would have
explained his presence on the scene, his possession of the child--the
thought that the cynical Bishop of Lodeve, the man of whom the whole
of France spoke so ill, might in truth have known of some deep-laid
scheme for kidnapping that child and have sent Pierre forward--or
after him--to rescue it at all costs, thinking, perhaps, that if
abstracted by him, it could be better kept in safety than even by its
own father. A wild and visionary idea, in truth, to have entered St.
Georges's mind, yet, perhaps, not too remote to suggest itself to an
unhappy parent so bereft as he was. But, in a moment, another
reflection chased it away.

"No!" he exclaimed to himself as the second thought arose. "No! no!
More like that the fellow Pierre was the messenger from Dijon who put
the ruffians on their guard; who warned them that I was accompanied by
the Mousquetaire Noir; that they would have two soldiers to contend
against instead of one. The fellow who had tracked us all day, then
passed us, and who, masked like the others, had stood out of the fight
in the graveyard. So! so! That vile bishop is in it, too. Fool that I
am to have thought that that sneering, evil priest had ever a kindly
thought in his heart. Yet why in it also? Why? why?"

He could follow his chain of reasoning no more--against all his
thoughts a blacker wall of impenetrable mystery rose than ever. He was
forced to desist from thinking, or go mad in doing so. For if this
man Pierre was De Roquemaure's auxiliary--if, as was undoubted from
the peasant woman's story, he had possessed himself of Dorine on
behalf of De Roquemaure--why had two other of that villain's myrmidons
slain him and possessed themselves of her? His mind could find no
answer to this; his reasoning ceased; he could go no further through
the maze.

"God, he knows," he muttered reverently. "In his good time, in his
infinite mercy, it may be he will let me know all, too."

But even as he rode