-Vallier eavesdropping.

"Pasques-Dieu!" he cried; "here's an audacity that deserves the axe."

"Sire," replied Saint-Vallier, haughtily, "I would prefer an axe at my
throat to the ornament of marriage on my head."

"You may have both," said Louis XI. "None of you are safe from such
infirmities, messieurs. Go into the farther hall. Conyngham," continued
the king, addressing the captain of the guard, "you are asleep! Where
is Monsieur de Bridore? Why do you let me be approached in this way?
Pasques-Dieu! the lowest burgher in Tours is better served than I am."

After scolding thus, Louis re-entered his room; but he took care to
draw the tapestried curtain, which made a second door, intended more to
stifle the words of the king than the whistling of the harsh north wind.

"So, my daughter," he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays with
a mouse, "Georges d'Estouteville was your lover last night?"

"Oh, no, sire!"

"No! Ah! by Saint-Carpion, he deserves to die. Did the scamp not think
my daughter beautiful?"

"Oh! that is not it," she said. "He kissed my feet and hands with an
ardor that might have touched the most virtuous of women. He loves me
truly in all honor."

"Do you take me for Saint-Louis, and suppose I should believe such
nonsense? A young fellow, made like him, to have risked his life just to
kiss your little slippers or your sleeves! Tell that to others."

"But, sire, it is true. And he came for another purpose."

Having said these words, Marie felt that she had risked the life of her
husband, for Louis instantly demanded:

"What purpose?"

The adventure amused him immensely. But he did not expect the strange
confidences his daughter now made to him after stipulating for the
pardon of her husband.

"Ho, ho, Monsieur de Saint-Vallier! So you dare to shed the royal
blood!" cried the king, his eyes lighting with anger.

At this moment the bell of Plessis sounded the hour of the king's
dinner. Leaning on the arm of his daughter, Louis XI. appeared with
contracted brows on the threshold of his chamber, and found all
his servitors in waiting. He cast an ambiguous look on the Comte de
Saint-Vallier, thinking of the sentence he meant to pronounce upon him.
The deep silence which reigned was presently broken by the steps of
Tristan l'Hermite as he mounted the grand staircase. The grand provost
entered the hall, and, advancing toward the king, said:--

"Sire, the affair is settled."

"What! is