to descend."

At that Rabecque stepped towards them, very purposeful of mien. Gaubert
turned at his approach, and smiled. Marius looked up quickly; then
made a sign to the men. Instantly two of them went out by the door they
guarded, and ere it swung back again Rabecque saw that they were
making for the stairs. The remaining four ranged themselves shoulder
to shoulder across the doorway, plainly with intent to bar the way.
Gaubert, followed immediately by Marius, stepped aside and approached
the landlord with arms akimbo and a truculent smile on his pale hawk
face. What he and Marius said, Rabecque could not make out, but he
distinctly heard the landlord's answer delivered with a respectful bow
to Marius:

"Bien, Monsieur de Condillac. I would not interfere in your
concerns--not for the world. I will be blind and deaf."

Marius acknowledged the servile protestation by a sneer, and Rabecque,
stirring at last, went forward boldly towards the doorway and its ugly,
human barrier.

"By your leave, sirs," said he--and he made to thrust one of them aside.

"You cannot pass this way, sir," he was answered, respectfully but
firmly.

Rabecque stood still, clenching and unclenching his hands and quivering
with anger. It was in that moment that he most fervently cursed Tressan
and his stupid meddling. Had the troopers still been there, they could
have made short work of these tatter-demalions. As it was, and with
Monsieur de Garnache dead, or at least absent, everything seemed at an
end. He might have contended that, his master being slain, it was no
great matter what he did, for in the end the Condillacs must surely have
their way with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he never paused to think
of that just then. His sense of trust was strong; his duty to his master
plain. He stepped back, and drew his sword.

"Let me pass!" he roared. But at the same instant there came the soft
slither of another weapon drawn, and Rabecque was forced to turn to meet
the onslaught of Monsieur Gaubert.

"You dirty traitor," cried the angry lackey, and that was all they left
him breath to say. Strong arms gripped him from behind. The sword was
wrenched from his hand. He was flung down heavily, and pinned prone in a
corner by one of those bullies who knelt on his spine. And then the door
opened again, and poor Rabecque groaned in impotent anguish to behold
Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye pause white-faced and wide-eyed on, the
threshold at sight