nd to her hair, even
as you sprang from the window. Another instant and he would have had
her scalped. But she is a fair woman, the fairest that ever my eyes
rested upon, and it is not fit that she should kneel here upon these
boards." He dragged her husband's long black cloak from him, and made a
pillow for the senseless woman with a tenderness and delicacy which came
strangely from a man of his build and bearing.

He was still stooping over her when there came the clang of the falling
bridge, and an instant later the clatter of the hoofs of a troop of
cavalry, who swept with wave of plumes, toss of manes, and jingle of
steel into the courtyard. At the head was a tall horseman in the full
dress of the guards, with a curling feather in his hat, high buff
gloves, and his sword gleaming in the sunlight. He cantered forward
towards the scaffold, his keen dark eyes taking in every detail of the
group which awaited him there. De Catinat's face brightened at the
sight of him, and he was down in an instant beside his stirrup.

"De Brissac!"

"De Catinat! Now where in the name of wonder did you come from?"

"I have been a prisoner. Tell me, De Brissac, did you leave the message
in Paris?"

"Certainly I did."

"And the archbishop came?"

"He did."

"And the marriage?"

"Took place as arranged. That is why this poor woman whom I see yonder
has had to leave the palace."

"I thought as much."

"I trust that no harm has come to her?"

"My friend and I were just in time to save her. Her husband lies there.
He is a fiend, De Brissac."

"Very likely; but an angel might have grown bitter had he had the same
treatment."

"We have him pinioned here. He has slain a man, and I have slain
another."

"On my word, you have been busy."

"How did you know that we were here?"

"Nay, that is an unexpected pleasure."

"You did not come for us, then?"

"No; we came for the lady."

"And how did this fellow get hold of her?"

"Her brother was to have taken her in his carriage. Her husband learned
it, and by a lying message he coaxed her into his own, which was at
another door. When De Vivonne found that she did not come, and that her
rooms were empty, he made inquiries, and soon learned how she had gone.
De Montespan's arms had been seen on the panel, and so the king sent me
here with my troop as fast as we could gallop."

"Ah, and you would have come too late had a strange chance not brought
us here. I kn