dentity. But I did even this at last, and, evading the obsequious
offers which were made me on all sides, escaped to the stables, where
I sought out the Cid's stall, and lying down in the straw beside him,
began to review the past, and plan the future. Under cover of the
darkness sleep soon came to me; my last waking thoughts being divided
between thankfulness for my escape and a steady purpose to reach Meudon
before the Vicomte, so that I might make good my tale in his absence.
For that seemed to be my only chance of evading the dangers I had chosen
to encounter.

CHAPTER XXXIII. AT MEUDON.

Making so early a start from Etampes that the inn, which had continued
in an uproar till long after midnight, lay sunk in sleep when we rode
out of the yard, we reached Meudon about noon next day. I should be
tedious were I to detail what thoughts my mistress and I had during that
day's journey--the last, it might be, which we should take together;
or what assurances we gave one another, or how often we, repented the
impatience which had impelled us to put all to the touch. Madame, with
kindly forethought, detached herself from us, and rode the greater part
of the distance with Fanchette; but the opportunities she gave us
went for little; for, to be plain, the separation we dreaded seemed to
overshadow us already. We uttered few words, through those few were to
the purpose, but riding hand-in-hand, with full hearts, and eyes which
seldom quitted one another, looked forward to Meudon and its perils
with such gloomy forebodings as our love and my precarious position
suggested.

Long before we reached the town, or could see more of it than the
Chateau, over which the Lilies of France and the broad white banner
of the Bourbons floated in company, we found ourselves swept into the
whirlpool which surrounds an army. Crowds stood at all the cross-roads,
wagons and sumpter-mules encumbered the bridges; each moment a horseman
passed us at a gallop, or a troop of disorderly rogues, soldiers only in
name, reeled, shouting and singing, along the road. Here and there, for
a warning to the latter sort, a man, dangled on a rude gallows; under
which sportsmen returning from the chase and ladies who had been for an
airing rode laughing on their way.

Amid the multitude entering the town we passed unnoticed. A little way
within the walls we halted to inquire where the Princess of Navarre had
her lodging. Hearing that she occupied a house in