erruption being attempted, as was natural enough,
considering that he was leaving instead of seeking to enter the
building. The soldiers, gendarmerie and the Suisses as well as the
Mousquetaires Gris--whose turn it was at the present moment to be in
attendance at the Louvre--were lounging about the guard room and the
great gateway, and they not only did not offer any opposition to his
passage, but, instead, seeing about him the signs of a cavalry
officer--the gorget, long cut-and-thrust sword, great boots, and
gantlets--saluted him.

Therefore he passed out into the street--since known in the present
century as the Rue de Rivoli--and regained his horse from the _guet_
in whose custody he had left it.

That he recognised the danger--the awful danger--in which he had now
placed himself, who can doubt? He was a soldier, and he had threatened
the assassination of the chief--under the king--of the army. Moreover,
he was a soldier who had just been dismissed from that army for
failing in his duty, for allowing private affairs--harrowing as they
were!--to come between him and that duty. Now he was cooler; he became
more clear sighted; he knew that he had done a thing which would
destroy any claim that he might make for the king's sympathy with him.

"I am ruined," he murmured, looking up and down the street, not knowing
which way to direct his horse's steps; "have ruined myself. Louis will
never forgive this when he hears Louvois's story--never see me nor hear
me. Fool, fool that I am! I have destroyed everything--above all, my one
chance of regaining Dorine!"

What was he to do? That was the question he asked himself. He had, it
was true, avoided instant arrest within the precincts of the palace,
but how long could he avoid arrest in whatever part of Paris he might
endeavour to shelter himself now?

"What have other men done," he pondered, "placed as I am--as I have
placed myself? What shall I, a broken, ruined soldier, do? What? what?
Turn bully, as he accused me of being, and cutthroat, bravo, or
thief--haunter of gambling hells and tripots? No! no! no! I am a
gentleman, have always lived like one; so let me continue to the end.
Yet, what to do now?"

He threaded his way through the streets, still filled with their
crowds of saltimbanques and quacks, though the fashionable world,
having seen _Le Roi Soleil_, had gone or was going home, for the
wintry evening was setting in. And as he rode slowly, for his poor
beast