oom?" said Marguerite, whose eyes expressed the
greatest astonishment; "who was in your room?"

"His highness."

"Hush!" interrupted Marguerite.

The young man obeyed.

"_Qui ad lecticam meam stant?_" she asked La Mole.

"_Duo pueri et unus eques_."

"_Optime, barbari!_" said she. "_Dic, Moles, quem inveneris in biculo
tuo?_"

"_Franciscum ducem_."

"_Agentem?_"

"_Nescio quid_."

"_Quocum?_"

"_Cum ignoto._"[8]

"That is strange," said Marguerite. "So you were unable to find
Coconnas?" she continued, without evidently thinking of what she was
saying.

"So, madame, as I have had the honor of telling you, I am really dying
of anxiety."

"Well," said Marguerite, sighing, "I do not wish to detain you longer in
your search for him; I do not know why I think so, but he will find
himself! Never mind, however, go, in spite of this."

The queen laid a finger on her lips. But as beautiful Marguerite had
confided no secret, had made no avowal to La Mole, the young man
understood that this charming gesture, meaning only to impose silence on
him, must have another significance.

The procession resumed its march, and La Mole, intent on following out
his investigation, continued to ascend the quay as far as the Rue Long
Pont which led him to the Rue Saint Antoine.

Opposite the Rue Jouy he stopped. It was there that the previous evening
the two duennas had bandaged his eyes and those of Coconnas. He had
turned to the left, then he had counted twenty steps. He repeated this
and found himself opposite a house, or rather a wall, behind which rose
a house; in this wall was a door with a shed over it ornamented with
large nails and loop-holes.

The house was in the Rue Cloche Percee, a small narrow street beginning
in the Rue Saint Antoine and ending in the Rue Roi de Sicile.

"By Heaven!" cried La Mole, "it was here--I would swear to it--in
extending my hand, as I came out, I felt the nails in the door, then I
descended two steps. The man who ran by crying 'Help!' who was killed in
the Rue Roi de Sicile, passed just as I reached the first. Let us see,
now."

La Mole went to the door and knocked. The door opened and a mustached
janitor appeared.

"_Was ist das?_" (Who is that?) asked the janitor.

"Ah! ah!" said La Mole, "we are Swiss, apparently." "My friend," he
continued, assuming the most charming manner, "I want my sword which I
left in this house in which I spent the night."

"_Ich verstehe nicht_,"