ess time before he came back; an age, when he
came back, before he spoke.

'Well, he has not set off?' I asked at last, unable to control my
eagerness.

Of course he had not; and at nine o'clock I sent Frison out again; and
at ten and eleven--always with the same result. I was like a man waiting
and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as
any craven. But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed
myself carefully. I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison
stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where I was
going.

I put the little man aside gently.

'To the tables,' I said, 'to make a big throw, my friend.'

It was a fine morning, sunny, keen, pleasant, when I went out into the
street; but I scarcely noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was
going, so that it seemed but a step from my threshold to the Hotel
Richelieu; I was no sooner gone from the one than I found myself at the
other. Now, as on a memorable evening when I had crossed the street in
a drizzling rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there were two or
three guards, in the Cardinal's livery, loitering in front of the great
gates. Coming nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the Louvre
thronged with people, not moving about their business, but standing all
silent, all looking across furtively, all with the air of persons who
wished to be thought passing by. Their silence and their keen looks had
in some way an air of menace. Looking back after I had turned in towards
the gates, I found them devouring me with their eyes.

And certainly they had little else to look at. In the courtyard, where,
some mornings, when the Court was in Paris, I had seen a score of
coaches waiting and thrice as many servants, were now emptiness and
sunshine and stillness. The officer on guard, twirling his moustachios,
looked at me in wonder as I passed him; the lackeys lounging in the
portico, and all too much taken up with whispering to make a pretence of
being of service, grinned at my appearance. But that which happened when
I had mounted the stairs and came to the door of the ante-chamber outdid
all. The man on guard would have opened the door, but when I went to
enter, a major-domo who was standing by, muttering with two or three of
his kind, hastened forward and stopped me.

'Your business, Monsieur, if you please?' he said inquisitively; while I
wondered why he and the others looked at m