cks to the King.

"Your Majesty!" cried the queen, rising in terror.

The three other guests felt their heads begin to swim; Coconnas alone
retained his self-possession. He rose also, but with such tactful
clumsiness that in doing so he upset the table, and with it the glass,
plate, and candles. Instantly there was complete darkness and the
silence of death.

"Run," said Coconnas to La Mole; "quick! quick!"

La Mole did not wait to be told twice. Springing to the side of the
wall, he began groping with his hands for the sleeping-room, that he
might hide in the cabinet that opened out of it and which he knew so
well. But as he stepped across the threshold he ran against a man who
had just entered by the secret corridor.

"What does all this mean?" asked Charles, in the darkness, in a tone
which was beginning to betray a formidable accent of impatience. "Am I
such a mar-joy that the sight of me causes all this confusion? Come,
Henriot! Henriot! where are you? Answer me."

"We are saved!" murmured Marguerite, seizing a hand which she took for
that of La Mole. "The King thinks my husband is one of our guests."

"And I shall let him think so, madame, you may be sure," said Henry,
answering the queen in the same tone.

"Great God!" cried Marguerite, hastily dropping the hand she held,
which was that of the King of Navarre.

"Silence!" said Henry.

"In the name of a thousand devils! why are you whispering in this way?"
cried Charles. "Henry, answer me; where are you?"

"Here, sire," said the King of Navarre.

"The devil!" said Coconnas, who was holding the Duchesse de Nevers in a
corner, "the plot thickens."

"In that case we are doubly lost," said Henriette.

Coconnas, brave to the point of rashness, had reflected that the candles
would have to be lighted sooner or later, and thinking the sooner the
better, he dropped the hand of Madame de Nevers, picked up a taper from
the midst of the debris, and going to a brazier blew on a piece of coal,
with which he at once made a light. The chamber was again illuminated.
Charles IX. glanced around inquiringly.

Henry was by the side of his wife, the Duchesse de Nevers was alone in a
corner, while Coconnas stood in the centre of the room, candle-stick in
hand, lighting up the whole scene.

"Excuse me, brother," said Marguerite, "we were not expecting you."

"So, as you may have perceived, your Majesty filled us with strange
terror," said Henriette.

"For my part,"