e in reply.

He then took from a cupboard a thick leather satchel, crammed with
papers, wrapped it in a piece of black cloth and tied it up. Then he
sat down at the table and wrote:

"Glad you got my message, for I think it unsafe to walk out of the
castle with that large bundle of securities. Here they are. You
will be in Paris, on your motor-cycle, in time to catch the morning
train to Brussels, where you will hand over the bonds to Z.; and he
will negotiate them at once.

"A. L.

"P. S.--As you pass by the Great Oak, tell our chaps that I'm
coming. I have some instructions to give them. But everything is
going well. No one here has the least suspicion."

He fastened the letter to the parcel and lowered both through the window
with a length of string:

"Good," he said. "That's all right. It's a weight off my mind."

He waited a few minutes longer, stalking up and down the room and
smiling at the portraits of two gallant gentlemen hanging on the wall:

"Horace de Sarzeau-Vendome, marshal of France.... And you, the Great
Conde ... I salute you, my ancestors both. Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendome will
show himself worthy of you."

At last, when the time came, he took his hat and went down. But, when he
reached the ground-floor, Angelique burst from her rooms and exclaimed,
with a distraught air:

"I say ... if you don't mind ... I think you had better...."

And then, without saying more, she went in again, leaving a vision of
irresponsible terror in her husband's mind.

"She's out of sorts," he said to himself. "Marriage doesn't suit her."

He lit a cigarette and went out, without attaching importance to an
incident that ought to have impressed him:

"Poor Angelique! This will all end in a divorce...."

The night outside was dark, with a cloudy sky.

The servants were closing the shutters of the castle. There was no light
in the windows, it being the duke's habit to go to bed soon after
dinner.

Lupin passed the gate-keeper's lodge and, as he put his foot on the
drawbridge, said:

"Leave the gate open. I am going for a breath of air; I shall be back
soon."

The patrol-path was on the right and ran along one of the old ramparts,
which used to surround the castle with a second and much larger
enclosure, until it ended at an almost demolished postern-gate. The
park, which skirted a hillock and afterward follo