hat is that?" she exclaimed, starting in alarm.

"The agents of the Queen-mother sent in my pursuit, probably," replied
La Mole coolly, and disengaging himself from the convulsive embrace of
Jocelyne. "How they have tracked me, I know not. So be it, then. I had
hoped for the sake of others to avoid their hands; but I am prepared to
meet my fate."

"No, no," screamed Jocelyne. "It cannot be! Mother--mother, would you
see him made a prisoner in your own house--murdered, perhaps, before
your very face!"

Alayn moved towards the door; and the girl sprang to intercept him.

"Would you be so base? Would you have me hate you?" cried the poor girl
in despair, to her cousin.

Many steps were now heard ascending the lower stair. The old woman, who
trembled in every limb, stirred not from her chair; but, removing one
hand from her face, she stretched it out towards a corner of the room.

"Ah! I understand you, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne. "That secret closet
where our books of religion are deposited, where our old priest, during
the massacre, was hid!"

"Whilst my son perished--a victim--a martyr!" groaned the old woman,
fearfully agitated.

"Come, come, Monseigneur," pursued the excited girl; and, in spite of
the unwillingness of La Mole to profit by a hospitality thus bestowed,
she dragged him to one corner of the room, and pushing back the spring
of one of those secret recesses then so commonly constructed in all
houses, as well of the bourgeois as the nobles, on account of the
troubles and dangers of the times, she compelled him by her entreaties
to enter a dark nook--then hastily closing the aperture, she exclaimed,
"God shield him!" and sank down into the stool by her grandmother's
side.

"Alayn!" she said, in a low hurried tone, as the heavy steps still
mounted the stairs, "you will be silent, will you not? You will not
betray him, and see the poor girl, whom you profess to love, die at your
feet!"

The youth shook his head with a gesture of resignation, although the
frown upon his brow showed how painful were the feelings that he
suppressed.

"Mother!" whispered Jocelyne once more to the old woman. "Calm your
agitation--oh! let not a word, a gesture, betray our secret! Stay! I
will read to you!" And she seized the Bible, then a dangerous book to
produce thus openly before Catholic agents of the court, and took it on
her lap.

Perrotte answered not a word, but continued to rock herself with much
agitation f