id that it was likely to
prove more difficult than he anticipated. Indeed, he understood that he
who was named de Noyon and Cattrina, having friends among the cardinals,
had already obtained some provisional ratification of his marriage with
the lady Eve Clavering. This ratification it would now be costly and
difficult to set aside.

Hugh answered that if only he could be granted an audience with his
Holiness, he had evidence which would make the justice of his cause
plain. What he sought was an audience.

The notary scratched his lantern jaws and asked how that could be
brought about when every gate of the palace was shut because of the
plague. Still, perhaps, it might be managed, he added, if a certain sum
were forthcoming to bribe various janitors and persons in authority.

Hugh gave him the sum out of the store of gold they had taken from the
robbers in the mountains, with something over for himself. So Basil
departed, saying that he would return at the same hour on the morrow,
if the plague spared him and them, his patrons, as he prayed the Saints
that it might do.

Hugh watched him go, then turned to Dick and said:

"I mistrust me of that hungry wolf in sheep's clothing who talks so
large and yet does nothing. Let us go out and search Avignon again.
Perchance we may meet Acour, or at least gather some tidings of him."

So they went, leaving the Tower locked and barred, who perchance would
have been wiser to follow Basil. A debased and fraudulent lawyer of
no character at all, this man lived upon such fees as he could wring
without authority from those who came to lay their suits before the
Papal Court, playing upon their hopes and fears and pretending to a
power which he did not possess. Had they done so, they might have seen
him turn up a certain side street, and, when he was sure that none
watched him, slip into the portal of an ancient house where visitors of
rank were accustomed to lodge.

Mounting some stairs without meeting any one, for this house, like many
others, seemed to be deserted in that time of pestilence, he knocked
upon a door.

"Begone, whoever you are," growled a voice from within. "Here there are
neither sick to be tended nor dead to be borne away."

Had they been there to hear it, Hugh and Dick might have found that
voice familiar.

"Noble lord," he replied, "I am the notary, Basil, and come upon your
business."

"Maybe," said the voice, "but how know I that you have not been nea