ok in vain!'

He turned on his heel, as he spoke, and in a moment was gone. I watched
him enter the Chateau, and in the uncertainty which possessed me whether
he was not gone--after salving his conscience by giving me warning--to
order my instant arrest, I felt, and I doubt not I looked, as ill at
ease for the time being as the group of trembling townsfolk who stood
near me. Reflecting that he should know his master's mind, I recalled
with depressing clearness the repeated warnings the King of Navarre
had given me that I must not look to him for reward or protection. I
bethought me that I was here against his express orders: presuming on
those very services which he had given me notice he should repudiate.
I remembered that Rosny had always been in the same tale. And in fine
I began to see that mademoiselle and I had together decided on a step
which I should never have presumed to take on my own motion.

I had barely arrived at this conclusion when the trampling of hoofs and
a sudden closing in of the crowd round the gate announced the King of
Navarre's approach. With a sick heart I drew nearer, feeling that the
crisis was at hand; and in a moment he came in sight, riding beside an
elderly man, plainly dressed and mounted, with whom he was carrying on
an earnest conversation. A train of nobles and gentlemen, whose martial
air and equipments made up for the absence of the gewgaws and glitter,
to which my eyes had become accustomed at Blois, followed close on his
heels. Henry himself wore a suit of white velvet, frayed in places
and soiled by his armour; but his quick eye and eager, almost fierce,
countenance could not fail to win and keep the attention of the least
observant. He kept glancing from side to side as he came on; and that
with so cheerful an air and a carriage so full at once of dignity and
good-humour that no one could look on him and fail to see that here was
a leader and a prince of men, temperate in victory and unsurpassed in
defeat.

The crowd raising a cry of 'VIVE NAVARRE!' as he drew near, he bowed,
with a sparkle in his eye. But when a few by the gate cried 'VIVENT LES
ROIS!' he held up his hand for silence, and said in a loud, clear voice,
'Not that, my friends. There is but one king in France. Let us say
instead, "Vive le Roi!"'

The spokesman of the little group of townsfolk, who, I learned, were
from Arcueil, and had come to complain of the excessive number of troops
quartered upon them, took