be to-day--where would
the Cause be--if my first care was my own peril?"

"Then that is where we differ, uncle," Lucas answered with a cold sneer.
"You are, it is well known, a patriot, toiling for the Church and the
King of Spain, with never a thought for the welfare of Charles of
Lorraine, Lord of Mayenne. But I, Paul of Lorraine, your humble nephew,
lord of my brain and hands, freely admit that I am toiling for no one
but the aforesaid Paul of Lorraine. I should find it most inconvenient
to get on without a head on my shoulders, and I shall do my best to keep
it there."

"You need not tell me that; I know it well enough," Mayenne answered.
"You are each for himself, none for me. At the same time, Paul, you will
do well to remember that your interest is to forward my interest."

"To the full, monsieur. And I shall kill you St. Quentin yet. You need
not call me coward; I am working for a dearer stake than any man in your
ranks."

"Well," Mayenne rejoined, "get on with your tale."

Lucas went on, Mayenne listening quietly, with no further word of blame.
He moved not so much as an eyelid till Lucas told of M. le Duc's
departure, when he flung himself forward in his chair with a sharp oath.

"What! by daylight?"

"Aye. He was afraid, after this discovery, of being set on at night."

"He went out in broad day?"

"So Vigo said. I saw him not," Lucas answered with something of his old
nonchalance.

"Mille tonnerres du diable!" Mayenne shouted. "If this is true, if he
got out in broad day, I'll have the head of the traitor that let him.
I'll nail it over his own gate."

"It is not worth your fret, monsieur," Lucas said lightly. "If you did,
how long would it avail? _Souvent homme trahie_; that is the only fixed
fact about him. If they pass St. Quentin to-day, they will pass some one
else to-morrow, and some one else still the day after."

Mayenne looked at him, half angry, half startled into some deeper
emotion at this deft twisting of his own words.

"Souvent homme trahie,
Mal habile qui s'y fie,"

he repeated musingly. He might have been saying over the motto of the
house of Lorraine. For the Guises believed in no man's good faith, as no
man believed in theirs.

"_Souvent homme trahie_," Mayenne said again, as if in the words he
recognized a bitter verity. "And that is as true as King Francis's
version. I suppose you will be the next, Paul."

"When I give up hope of Lorance," Lucas said blunt