taper within is lighted
shine like jewels. So Lucas now. His face, so keen and handsome of
feature, was brilliant, his eyes sparkling, his figure instinct with
defiance. A smile crossed his face.

"Aye," he answered evenly, "it is Lucas."

M. le Comte appeared to be in a state of stupor. He could not for a
space find his tongue to demand:

"How, in the name of Heaven, come you here?"

"To fight Grammont," Lucas answered at once.

"A lie!" I shouted. "You're Grammont's friend. You came here to warn him
off. It's your plot!"

"Felix! The plot?" Yeux-gris cried.

"The plot's to murder Monsieur. Martin let it out. I thought it was you
and Grammont. But it's Lucas and Grammont!"

Lucas hesitated. Even now he debated whether he could not lie out of it.
Then he burst into laughter.

"It seems the cat's out of the bag. Aye, M. le Comte de Mar, I came to
warn Grammont off. The duke will be here straightway. How will you like
to swing for parricide?"

Yeux-gris stared at him, neither in fear nor in fury, but in utter
stupefaction.

"But Gervais? He plotted with you? But he hates you!"

We gaped at Lucas like yokels at a conjurer. He made us no answer but
looked from one to the other of us with the alertness of an angry viper.
We were two, but without swords. I knew he was thinking how easiest to
end us both.

M. le Comte cried: "You! You come from Navarre's camp, from M. de
Rosny!"

"Aye. I have outwitted more than one man."

"Mordieu! I was right to hate you!"

Lucas laughed. Yeux-gris blazed out:

"Traitor and thief! You stole the money. I said that from the first. You
drove us from the house. How you and Grammont--"

"Came together? Very simple," Lucas answered with easy insolence.
"Grammont did not love Monsieur, your honoured father. It was child's
play to make an assignation with him and to lament the part forced on me
by Monsieur. Grammont was ready enough to scent a scheme of M. le Duc's
to ruin him. He had said as much to Monsieur, as you may deign to
remember."

"Aye," said M. le Comte, still like a puzzled child, "he was angry with
my father. But afterward he changed his mind. He knew it was you, and
only you."

Lucas broke again into derisive laughter.

"M. de Grammont is as dull a dolt as ever I met, yet clever enough to
gull you. He thought you must suspect. I dreaded it--needlessly. You
wise St. Quentins! You cannot see what goes on under your very nose."

M. le Comte sprang forward,