, drawing
off with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay him
another time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" And
shrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could and
moved off.

Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You have
something to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by the
arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. In
doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank
with a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a
narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence
protected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to
put his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meant
that certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself.

He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the point
of immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what is
it?" he said. "Speak!"

"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled.

"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more than
he said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! I
will answer for that."

"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mind
centred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and again
this morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there has
been some talk--of a box or a bottle."

"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting.

"No, downstairs."

"Did they get--the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note in
Basterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad.

Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril.
"Not to my knowledge," he said.

"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing to
do--with all this, I suppose?"

"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went,"
the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed me
and overtook me on the bridge and threatened--that he would have me
arrested if I were not silent."

"You refused to be silent, of course?"

But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew that
Basterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, I
said I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," he
continued with candour, "if I had not run into