far hence. You forget, M. Peyrot, that you are risen
earlier than usual. I will go out and sit on the stair for five minutes
while you consult your friends."

Peyrot grinned cheerfully.

"M. de Mar doesn't seem able to get it through his head that I know
nothing whatever of this affair."

"No, I certainly don't get that through my head."

Peyrot regarded him with an air ill-used yet compassionate, such as he
might in his monkish days have employed toward one who could not be
convinced, for instance, of the efficacy of prayer.

"M. de Mar," quoth he, plaintively, in pity half for himself so
misunderstood, half for his interlocutor so wilfully blind, "I do
solemnly assure you, once and for all, that I know nothing of this
affair of yours. Till you so asserted, I had no knowledge that Monsieur,
your honoured father, had been set on, and deeply am I pained to hear
it. These be evil days when such things can happen. As for your packet,
I learn of it only through your word, having no more to do with this
deplorable business than a babe unborn."

I declare I was almost shaken, almost thought we had wronged him. But M.
Etienne gauged him otherwise.

"Your words please me," he began.

"The contemplation of virtue," the rascal droned with down-drawn lips,
in pulpit tone, "is always uplifting to the spirit."

"You have boasted," M. Etienne went on, "that your side was up and mine
down. Did you not reflect that soon my side may be up and yours down,
you would hardly be at such pains to deny that you ever bared blade
against the Duke of St. Quentin."

"I have made my declaration in the presence of two witnesses, far too
honourable to falsify, that I know nothing of the attack on the duke,"
Peyrot repeated with apparent satisfaction. "But of course it is
possible that by scouring Paris I might get on the scent of your packet.
Twenty pistoles, though. That is not much."

M. Etienne stood silent, drumming tattoos on the table, not pleased with
the turn of the matter, not seeing how to better it. Had we been sure of
our suspicions, we would have charged him, pistol or no pistol,
trusting that our quickness would prevent his shooting, or that the
powder would miss fire, or that the ball would fly wide, or that we
should be hit in no vital part; trusting, in short, that God was with us
and would in some fashion save us. But we could not be sure that the
packet was with Peyrot. What we had heard him lock in the chest might
h