till lower tone.

"And Marguerite?"

"Is waiting for you."

"'T is well."

Hereupon the duke made a signal to his page, who, opening his cloak,
took out a small rope ladder. The prince fastened one end to the silk
lace, and Gillonne, drawing it up, tied it securely. Then the prince,
after having buckled his sword to his belt, ascended without accident.
When he had entered, the bar was replaced and the window closed, while
the page, having seen his master quietly enter the Louvre, to the
windows of which he had accompanied him twenty times in the same way,
laid himself down in his cloak on the grass of the fosse, beneath the
shadow of the wall.

The night was extremely dark, and large drops of warm rain were falling
from the heavy clouds charged with electric fluid.

The Duc de Guise followed his guide, who was no other than the daughter
of Jacques de Matignon, marechal of France. She was the especial
confidante of Marguerite, who kept no secret from her; and it was said
that among the number of mysteries entrusted to her incorruptible
fidelity, there were some so terrible as to compel her to keep the
rest.

There was no light left either in the low rooms or in the corridors,
only from time to time a livid glare illuminated the dark apartments
with a vivid flash, which as instantly disappeared.

The duke, still guided by his conductress, who held his hand, reached a
staircase built in the thick wall, and opening by a secret and invisible
door into the antechamber of Marguerite's apartment.

In this antechamber, which like all the other lower rooms was perfectly
dark, Gillonne stopped.

"Have you brought what the queen requested?" she inquired, in a low
voice.

"Yes," replied the Duc de Guise; "but I will give it only to her majesty
in person."

"Come, then, and do not lose an instant!" said a voice from the
darkness, which made the duke start, for he recognized it as
Marguerite's.

At the same moment a curtain of violet velvet covered with golden
fleurs-de-lis was raised, and the duke made out the form of the queen,
who in her impatience had come to meet him.

"I am here, madame," he then said; and he passed the curtain, which fell
behind him. So Marguerite de Valois herself now became the prince's
guide, leading him into the room which, however, he knew already, while
Gillonne, standing at the door, had raised her finger to her lips and
reassured her royal mistress.

As if she understood the duke's