sprang up-and struck me
a blow that hurled me off the step. I fell where the ponderous wheels
would have ended me had not a guardsman, quick and kind, pulled me out
of the way. Some one shouted, "Assassin!"

"I am no assassin," I cried; "I only sought to speak with Monsieur."

"He deserves a hiding, the young cur," growled my foe, the sentry.
"He's been pestering me this half-hour to let him in. He was one of
Monsieur's men, he said. Monsieur would see him. Well, we have seen how
Monsieur treats him!"

"Faith, no," said another. "We have only seen how our young gentleman
treats him. Of course he is too proud and dainty to let a common man so
much as look at him."

They all laughed; the young gentleman seemed no favourite.

"Parbleu! that was why I drew him from the wheels, because _he_ knocked
him there," said my preserver. "I don't believe there's harm in the boy.
What meant you, lad?"

"I meant no harm," I said, and turned sullenly off up the street. This,
then, was what I had come to Paris for--to be denied entrance to the
house, thrown under the coach-wheels, and threatened with a drubbing
from the lackeys!

For three years my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking
in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never
was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul
into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted
from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had
been a journey to Paradise. And now, this!

Monsieur had looked me in the face and not smiled; had heard me beseech
him and not answered--not lifted a finger to save me from being mangled
under his very eyes. St. Quentin and Paris were two very different
places, it appeared. At St. Quentin Monsieur had been pleased to take
me into the chateau and treat me to more intimacy than he accorded to
the high-born lads, his other pages. So much the easier, then, to cast
me off when he had tired of me. My heart seethed with rage and
bitterness against Monsieur, against the sentry, and, more than all,
against the young Comte de Mar, who had flung me under the wheels.

I had never before seen the Comte de Mar, that spoiled only son of M. le
Duc's, who was too fine for the country, too gay to share his father's
exile. Maybe I was jealous of the love his father bore him, which he so
little repaid. I had never thought to like him, St. Quentin though he
were; and now that