I moved toward the coveted checkmate, to
find a castle towering in the way! I came in here to await young
Montaigne. He fails to appear. Chance brings others here, and lo! it
becomes a new game. And D'Herouville will be out of hospital to-morrow
or next day. Quebec promises to become as lively as Paris. Diane, he
called her. What is her object in concealing her name? By all the
gargoyles of Notre Dame, but she would lure a bishop from his fish of a
Friday!"

He gathered up a pinch of the ash and blew it into the air.

"Happily the poet smelt nothing but paper. Lockets and love-letters;
and D'Herouville and I for cutting each other's throats! That is
droll. . . . My faith, I will do it! It will be a tolerably good
stroke. 'I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times'! Chevalier,
Chevalier! Dip steel into blood, and little comes of it; but dip steel
into that black liquid named ink, and a kingdom topples. She is to
become a nun, too, she says. I think not."

It was the Vicomte d'Halluys; and when, shortly after this soliloquy,
Montaigne came in, he saw that the vicomte was smiling and stabbing
with the tip of his finger some black ash which sifted about on the
table.

CHAPTER XX

A DEATH WARRANT OR A MARRIAGE CONTRACT

"Well, Gabrielle," said Anne, curiously, "what do you propose to do?"

Madame went to the window; madame stared far below the balcony at the
broad river which lay smooth and white in the morning sunshine; madame
drummed on the window-casing.

"It is a mare's nest," she replied, finally.

"First of all, there is D'Herouville. True, he is in the hospital,"
observed Anne, "but he will shortly become an element."

Madame shrugged.

"There's the vicomte, for another."

Madame spread the most charming pair of hands.

"And the poet," Anne continued.

Madame tucked away a rebel curl above her ear.

"And last, but not least, there's the Chevalier du Cevennes. The
governor was very kind to permit you to remain incognito."

Madame's face became animated. "What an embarrassing thing it is to be
so plentifully and frequently loved!"

"If only you loved some one of these noble gentlemen!"

"D'Herouville, a swashbuckler; D'Halluys, a gamester; Du Cevennes, a
fop. Truly, you can not wish me so unfortunate as that?"

"Besides, Monsieur du Cevennes does not know nor love you."

"I suppose not. How droll it would be if I should set about making him
fall in love with m