" inquired the queen
mother of the lovely duchess.

Marguerite touched her friend on the elbow, and she, understanding the
sign, replied:

"No, madame, unless your majesty desire it; for I have business in the
city with her majesty the Queen of Navarre."

"And what are you going to do together?" inquired Catharine.

"To see some very rare and curious Greek books found at an old
Protestant pastor's, and which have been taken to the Tower of Saint
Jacques la Boucherie," replied Marguerite.

"You would do much better to see the last Huguenots flung into the Seine
from the top of the Pont des Meuniers," said Charles IX.; "that is the
place for all good Frenchmen."

"We will go, if it be your Majesty's desire," replied the Duchesse de
Nevers.

Catharine cast a look of distrust on the two young women. Marguerite, on
the watch, remarked it, and turning round uneasily, looked about her.

This assumed or real anxiety did not escape Catharine.

"What are you looking for?"

"I am seeking--I do not see"--she replied.

"Whom are you seeking? Who is it you fail to see?"

"La Sauve," said Marguerite; "can she have returned to the Louvre?"

"Did I not say you were jealous?" said Catharine, in her daughter's ear.
"Oh, _bestia_! Come, come, Henriette," she added, shrugging her
shoulders, "begone, and take the Queen of Navarre with you."

Marguerite pretended to be still looking about her; then, turning to her
friend, she said in a whisper:

"Take me away quickly; I have something of the greatest importance to
say to you."

The duchess courtesied to the King and queen mother, and then, bowing
low before the Queen of Navarre:

"Will your majesty deign to come into my litter?"

"Willingly, only you will have to take me back to the Louvre."

"My litter, like my servants and myself, are at your majesty's orders."

Queen Marguerite entered the litter, while Catharine and her gentlemen
returned to the Louvre just as they had come. But during the route it
was observed that the queen mother kept talking to the King, pointing
several times to Madame de Sauve, and at each time the King laughed--as
Charles IX. laughed; that is, with a laugh more sinister than a threat.

As soon as Marguerite felt the litter in motion, and had no longer to
fear Catharine's searching eyes, she quickly drew from her sleeve Madame
de Sauve's note and read as follows:

"_I have received orders to send to-night to the King of Navarre