took up the candle
and went up to the rug. Then he gave a cry, and we all gathered round
him. The sleeping child was only a bundle of hair and of clothes, a
dummy--what?"

There was silence now in the narrow room, while the white-faced clock
continued to tick off each succeeding second of time. Heron had once
more buried his head in his hands; a trembling--like an attack of
ague--shook his wide, bony shoulders. Armand had listened to the
narrative with glowing eyes and a beating heart. The details which the
two Terrorists here could not probably understand he had already added
to the picture which his mind had conjured up.

He was back in thought now in the small lodging in the rear of St.
Germain l'Auxerrois; Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, and my Lord Tony and
Hastings, and a man was striding up and down the room, looking out into
the great space beyond the river with the eyes of a seer, and a firm
voice said abruptly:

"It is about the Dauphin!"

"Have you any suspicions?" asked Chauvelin now, pausing in his walk
beside Heron, and once more placing a firm, peremptory hand on his
colleague's shoulder.

"Suspicions!" exclaimed the chief agent with a loud oath. "Suspicions!
Certainties, you mean. The man sat here but two days ago, in that very
chair, and bragged of what he would do. I told him then that if he
interfered with Capet I would wring his neck with my own hands."

And his long, talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed
and unclosed like those of feline creatures when they hold the coveted
prey.

"Of whom do you speak?" queried Chauvelin curtly.

"Of whom? Of whom but that accursed de Batz? His pockets are bulging
with Austrian money, with which, no doubt, he has bribed the Simons and
Cochefer and the sentinels--"

"And Lorinet and Lasniere and you," interposed Chauvelin dryly.

"It is false!" roared Heron, who already at the suggestion was foaming
at the mouth, and had jumped up from his chair, standing at bay as if
prepared to fight for his life.

"False, is it?" retorted Chauvelin calmly; "then be not so quick, friend
Heron, in slashing out with senseless denunciations right and left.
You'll gain nothing by denouncing any one just now. This is too
intricate a matter to be dealt with a sledge-hammer. Is any one up in
the Tower at this moment?" he asked in quiet, business-like tones.

"Yes. Cochefer and the others are still there. They are making wild
schemes to cover their treac