rrested and driven to the Bastille to-night between
seven and eight. Lucas--Paul de Lorraine--went to the governor and swore
that M. Etienne killed the lackey Pontou in the house in the Rue
Coupejarrets. It was Lucas killed him--Lucas told Mayenne so. Mlle. de
Montluc heard him, too. And here is mademoiselle."

At the word she came out of the shadow and slowly over the threshold.

Her alarm and passion had swept her to the door of the Hotel St. Quentin
as a whirlwind sweeps a leaf. She had come without thought of herself,
without pause, without fear. But now the first heat of her impulse was
gone. Her long tramp had left her faint and weary, and here she had to
face not an equery and a page, hers to command, but a great duke, the
enemy of her house. She came blushfully in her peasant dress, shoes
dirty from the common road, hair ruffled by the night winds, to show
herself for the first time to her lover's father, opposer of her hopes,
thwarter of her marriage. Proud and shy, she drifted over the door-sill
and stood a moment, neither lifting her eyes nor speaking, like a bird
whom the least movement would startle into flight.

But Monsieur made none. He kept as still, as tongue-tied, as she,
looking at her as if he could hardly believe her presence real. Then as
the silence prolonged itself, it seemed to frighten her more than the
harsh speech she may have feared; with a desperate courage she raised
her eyes to his face.

The spell was broken. Monsieur stepped forward at once to her.

"Mademoiselle, you have come a journey. You are tired. Let me give you
some refreshment; then will you tell me the story."

It was an unlucky speech, for she had been on the very point of
unburdening herself; but now, without a word, she accepted his escort
down the passage. But as she went, she flung me an imploring glance; I
was to come too. Gilles bolted the door again, and sat down to wait on
the staircase; but I, though my lord had not bidden me, followed him and
mademoiselle. It troubled me that she should so dread him--him, the
warmest-hearted of all men. But if she needed me to give her confidence,
here I was.

Monsieur led her into a little square parlour at the end of the passage.
It was just behind the shop, I knew, it smelt so of leather. It was
doubtless the sitting-and eating-room of the saddler's family. Monsieur
set his candle down on the big table in the middle; then, on second
thought, took it up again and lighted t