hts--thoughts of all that had happened since we had
last ascended that track; and so our minds turned naturally back to him
to whom we owed our happiness--to the giant left behind in his pride
and power and his loneliness. The others could think of him with full
hearts, yet without shame. But I reddened, reflecting how it would
have been with us if I had had my way; if I had resorted in my
shortsightedness to one last violent, cowardly deed, and killed him, as
I had twice wished to do.

Pavannes would then have been lost almost certainly. Only the Vidame
with his powerful troop--we never knew whether he had gathered them for
that purpose or merely with an eye to his government--could have saved
him. And few men however powerful--perhaps Bezers only of all men in
Paris would have dared to snatch him from the mob when once it had
sighted him. I dwell on this now that my grandchildren may take
warning by it, though never will they see such days as I have seen.

And so we clattered up the steep street of Caylus with a pleasant
melancholy upon us, and passed, not without a more serious thought, the
gloomy, frowning portals, all barred and shuttered, of the House of the
Wolf, and under the very window, sombre and vacant, from which Bezers
had incited the rabble in their attack on Pavannes' courier. We had
gone by day, and we came back by night. But we had gone trembling, and
we came back in joy.

We did not need to ring the great bell. Jean's cry, "Ho! Gate there!
Open for my lords!" had scarcely passed his lips before we were
admitted. And ere we could mount the ramp, one person outran those who
came forth to see what the matter was; one outran Madame Claude, outran
old Gil, outran the hurrying servants, and the welcome of the house. I
saw a slender figure all in white break away from the little crowd and
dart towards us, disclosing as it reached me a face that seemed still
whiter than its robes, and yet a face that seemed all eyes--eyes that
asked the question the lips could not frame.

I stood aside with a low bow, my hat in my hand; and said simply--it
was the great effect of my life--"VOILA Monsieur!"

And then I saw the sun rise in a woman's face.

* * * * *

The Vidame de Bezers died as he had lived. He was still Governor of
Cahors when Henry the Great attacked it on the night of the 17th of
June, 1580. Taken by surprise and wounded in the first confusion of
the assault, he stil