the woman who had played with him. To do so he
was bringing her lover from Paris that he might execute him--AFTER
GIVING HER NOTICE! That was it: after giving her notice, it might be
in her very presence! He would lure her to Cahors, and then--

I shuddered. I well might feel that a precipice was opening at my
feet. There was something in the plan so devilish, yet so accordant
with those stories I had heard of the Wolf, that I felt no doubt of my
insight. I read his evil mind, and saw in a moment why he had troubled
himself with us. He hoped to draw Mademoiselle to Cahors by our means.

Of course I said nothing of this to Louis. I hid my feelings as well
as I could. But I vowed a great vow that at the eleventh hour we would
baulk the Vidame. Surely if all else failed we could kill him, and,
though we died ourselves, spare Kit this ordeal. My tears were dried
up as by a fire. My heart burned with a great and noble rage: or so
it seemed to me!

I do not think that there was ever any journey so strange as this one
of ours. We met with the same incidents which had pleased us on the
road to Paris. But their novelty was gone. Gone too were the cosy
chats with old rogues of landlords and good-natured dames. We were
travelling now in such force that our coming was rather a terror to the
innkeeper than a boon. How much the Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy,
going down to his province, requisitioned in the king's name; and for
how much he paid, we could only judge from the gloomy looks which
followed us as we rode away each morning. Such looks were not solely
due I fear to the news from Paris, although for some time we were the
first bearers of the tidings.

Presently, on the third day of our journey I think, couriers from the
Court passed us: and henceforth forestalled us. One of these
messengers--who I learned from the talk about me was bound for Cahors
with letters for the Lieutenant-Governor and the Count-Bishop--the
Vidame interviewed and stopped. How it was managed I do not know, but
I fear the Count-Bishop never got his letters, which I fancy would have
given him some joint authority. Certainly we left the messenger--a
prudent fellow with a care for his skin--in comfortable quarters at
Limoges, whence I do not doubt he presently returned to Paris at his
leisure.

The strangeness of the journey however arose from none of these things,
but from the relations of our party to one another. After the fir