his courier? Why had not that fool Fortunio asked him, so that
Garnache might have overheard his answer? Was he from Paris and the
Queen, or was he, perchance, from Italy and Florimond? These were
questions to which it imported him to have the answers. He must know
what letters the fellow brought. The knowledge might guide him now;
might even cause him to alter the plans he had formed.

He stood in thought whilst, unheeded by him, Arsenio prattled at his
elbow. He bethought him of the old minstrel's gallery at the end of the
hall in which the Condillacs were dining and whither the courier would
be conducted. He knew the way to that gallery, for he had made a very
close study of the chateau against the time when he might find himself
in need of the knowledge.

With a hurried excuse to Arsenio he moved away, and, looking round to
see that he was unobserved, he was on the point of making his way to the
gallery when suddenly he checked himself. What went he there to do? To
play the spy? To become fellow to the lackey who listens at keyholes?
Ah, no! That was something no service could demand of him. He might owe
a duty to the Queen, but there was also a duty that he owed himself, and
this duty forbade him from going to such extremes. Thus spake his Pride,
and he mistook its voice for that of Honour. Betide what might, it was
not for Garnache to play the eavesdropper. Not that, Pardieu!

And so he turned away, his desires in conflict with that pride of his,
and gloomily he paced the courtyard, Arsenio marvelling what might have
come to him. And well was it for him that pride should have detained
him; well would it seem as if his luck were indeed in the ascendant and
had prompted his pride to save him from a deadly peril. For suddenly
some one called "Battista!"

He heard, but for the moment, absorbed as he was in his own musings,
he overlooked the fact that it was the name to which he answered at
Condillac.

Not until it was repeated more loudly, and imperatively, did he turn to
see Fortunio beckoning him. With a sudden dread anxiety, he stepped
to the captain's side. Was he discovered? But Fortunio's words set his
doubts to rest at once.

"You are to re-conduct Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to her apartments at
once."

Garnache bowed and followed the captain up the steps and into the
chateau that he might carry out the order; and as he went he shrewdly
guessed that it was the arrival of that courier had occasioned the