You should have been here four
days ago, as I take it. Now you are here, where is the lady?'

'Mademoiselle de la Vire?' I stammered, rather to gain time than with
any other object.

'Tut, tut!' he rejoined, frowning. 'Is there any other lady in the
question? Come, sir, speak out. Where have you left her? This is no
affair of gallantry,' he continued, the harshness of his demeanour
disagreeably surprising me, 'that you need beat about the bush. The king
entrusted to you a lady, who, I have no hesitation in telling you now,
was in possession of certain State secrets. It is known that she escaped
safely from Chize and arrived safely at Blois. Where is she?'

'I would to Heaven I knew, sir!' I exclaimed in despair, feeling the
painfulness of my position increased a hundred fold by his manner. 'I
wish to God I did.'

'What is this?' he cried in a raised voice. 'You do not know where she
is? You jest, M. de Marsac.'

'It were a sorry jest,' I answered, summoning up a rueful smile. And on
that, plunging desperately into the story which I have here set down, I
narrated the difficulties under which I had raised my escort, the manner
in which I came to be robbed of the gold token, how mademoiselle was
trepanned, the lucky chance by which I found her again, and the final
disappointment. He listened, but listened throughout with no word of
sympathy--rather with impatience, which grew at last into derisive
incredulity. When I had done he asked me bluntly what I called myself.

Scarcely understanding what he meant, I repeated my name.

He answered, rudely and flatly, that it was impossible. I do not believe
it, sir!' he repeated, his brow dark. 'You are not the man. You bring
neither the lady nor the token, nor anything else by which I can test
your story. Nay, sir, do not scowl at me,' he continued sharply. 'I am
the mouthpiece of the King of Navarre, to whom this matter is of the
highest importance. I cannot believe that the man whom he would choose
would act so. This house you prate of in Blois, for instance, and the
room with the two doors? What were you doing while mademoiselle was
being removed?'

'I was engaged with the men of the house,' I answered, striving to
swallow the anger which all but choked me. 'I did what I could. Had the
door given way, all would have been well.'

He looked at me darkly. 'That is fine talking!' he said with a sneer.
Then he dropped his eyes and seemed for a time to fall into a brown
stu