justice, truth and religion, commands us not to do.
God's word tells us not to murder, yet men daily do it, and women
think them all the nobler for trading in blood. If we violate the
law, and do what is really wicked, we risk punishment on earth, and
incur punishment hereafter; yet if we do strictly what honesty and
justice tells us, in all cases, how many instances would be found,
where men would shun us, and where our own hearts would condemn us
also. Here I have it in my power to stop the effusion of much blood,
to prevent the commission of many crimes, to strangle, perhaps, a
civil war in its birth, merely by discovering the presence of these
men in a land from which they are exiled--I have it in my power
thereby to spare even themselves from evil acts and certain
punishment: and yet my lips must be sealed, lest men should say I
dealt treacherously with them. 'Tis a hard-dealing world, and I have
suffered too much already by despising it, to despise it any more."
As she thus came to the conclusion, which every woman, perhaps, will
come to sooner or later, she turned and left the room; and while her
foot was still upon the staircase, there came a sound of many horses'
feet from the small paved esplanade in front of the house.
"Ay, there they are," murmured the lady in a low voice--"the men who
would use any treacherous art whatever to accomplish their own
purpose, and who would yet call any one traitor who divulged their
schemes. Would to God that Helen would come back! I am weary of all
this, and sick at heart, as well I may be."
A sound in the hall below made her quicken her footsteps; and in two
or three minutes more the room she had just quitted was occupied by
five or six tenants of a very different character and appearance from
herself.

CHAPTER XVIII.
The first person that entered the room after the lady quitted it was
Monsieur Plessis himself, who, with a light in his hand, came quickly
on before the rest, and gave a rapid glance round, as if to insure
that no little articles belonging to its last tenant remained
scattered about, to betray the fact of her dwelling in his house.
He was followed soon after by a tall, thin, gloomy-looking personage,
dressed in dark clothing, and somewhat heavily armed, for a period of
internal peace. His complexion was saturnine, his features sharp and
angular, his eyes keen and sunk deep under the overhanging brows; and
across one cheek, not far below the eye, was a deep gash, which drew
down the inner cor