The young girl appeared.

"I must speak at once with Monsieur de la Mole," said the queen. "Try to
find him and bring him here."

Gillonne disappeared. Henry seated himself before a table on which was a
German book containing engravings by Albert Durer, which he began to
examine with such close attention that when La Mole entered he did not
seem to hear him, and did not even raise his head.

On his side, the young man, seeing the king with Marguerite, stopped on
the threshold, silent from surprise and pale from anxiety.

Marguerite went to him.

"Monsieur de la Mole," said she, "can you tell me who is on guard to-day
at Monsieur d'Alencon's?"

"Coconnas, madame," said La Mole.

"Try to find out for me from him if he admitted to his master's room a
man covered with mud, who apparently had a long or hasty ride."

"Ah, madame, I fear he will not tell me; for several days he has been
very taciturn."

"Indeed! But by giving him this note, it seems to me that he will owe
you something in exchange."

"From the duchess! Oh, with this note I will try."

"Add," said Marguerite, lowering her voice, "that this note will serve
him as a means of gaining entrance this evening to the house you know
about."

"And I, madame," said La Mole, in a low tone, "what shall be mine?"

"Give your name. That will be enough."

"Give me the note, madame," said La Mole, with throbbing heart, "I will
bring back the answer."

He withdrew.

"We shall know to-morrow if the duke has been informed of the Poland
affair," said Marguerite calmly, turning to her husband.

"That Monsieur de la Mole is really a fine servant," said the Bearnais,
with his peculiar smile, "and, by Heaven! I will make his fortune!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE DEPARTURE.

When on the following day a beautiful sun, red but rayless, as is apt to
be the case on privileged days of winter, rose behind the hills of
Paris, everything had already been awake for two hours in the court of
the Louvre. A magnificent Barbary horse, nervous and spirited, with
limbs like those of a stag, on which the veins crossed one another like
network, pawed the ground, pricked up his ears and snorted, while
waiting for Charles IX. He was less impatient, however, than his master
who, detained by Catharine, had been stopped by her in the hall. She had
said she wished to speak to him on a matter of importance. Both were in
the corridor with the glass windows. Catharine was cold, pale, an