oicism oozed away; he turned again.
Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd of wretches who were bearing a
swooning victim to the river, he hurried through the Rue des Lombards,
and reached in safety the house beside the Golden Maid.

He had no doubt now on which side of the Maid Madame St. Lo lived; the
house was plain before him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as
he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all, with all in his
grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which bore no looking at;
and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind him that he
plied the heavy iron knocker which adorned the door.

He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, who were gathered
under one of the tottering gables on the farther side of the street. They
seemed to be watching him, and he fancied--though the distance rendered
this impossible--that he could see suspicion growing in their eyes. At
any moment they might cross the roadway, they might approach, they might
challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and knocked again. Why did
not the porter come?

Ay, why? For now a score of contingencies came into the young man's mind
and tortured him. Had Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quarters and
closed the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she given way to
panic, and determined to open to no one? Or was she ill? Or had she
perished in the general disorder? Or--

And then, even as the men began to slink towards him, his heart leapt. He
heard a footstep heavy and slow move through the house. It came nearer
and nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in the door slid
open, and a servant, an elderly man, sleek and respectable, looked out at
him.

Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement. "Madame St. Lo?" he
muttered tremulously. "I come to her from her cousin the Comte de
Tavannes. Quick! quick! if you please. Open to me!"

"Monsieur is alone?"

"Yes! Yes!"

The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts. He allowed M. de
Tignonville to enter, then with care he secured the door, and led the way
across a small square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by the
house, but open above to the sunshine and the blue sky. A gallery which
ran round the upper floor looked on this court, in which a great quiet
reigned, broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine climbed on the
wooden pillars which supported the gallery, and, aspiring higher,
embra