'but I got no satisfaction. He said you had his good-will, and
that to help you he would risk something, but that to do so under these
circumstances would be only to injure himself.'

'There is still Crillon,' I said, with as much cheerfulness as I could
assume. 'Pray Heaven he be there early! Did M. de Rambouillet say
anything else?'

'That your only chance was to fly as quickly and secretly as possible.'

'He thought; my situation desperate, then?'

My friend nodded; and scarcely less depressed on my account than ashamed
on his own, evinced so much feeling that it was all I could do to
comfort him; which I succeeded in doing only when I diverted the
conversation to Madame de Bruhl. We passed the short night together,
sharing the same room and the same bed, and talking more than we
slept--of madame and mademoiselle, the castle on the hill, and the camp
in the woods, of all old days in fine, but little of the future. Soon
after dawn Simon, who lay on a pallet across the threshold, roused me
from a fitful sleep into which I had just fallen, and a few minutes
later I stood up dressed and armed, ready to try the last chance left to
me.

M. d'Agen had dressed stage for stage with me, and I had kept silence.
But when he took up his cap, and showed clearly that he had it in his
mind to go with me, I withstood him. 'No, I said, 'you can do me little
good, and may do yourself much harm.'

'You shall not go without one friend,' he cried fiercely.

'Tut, tut!' I said. 'I shall have Simon.'

But Simon, when I turned to speak to him, was gone. Few men are at their
bravest in the early hours of the day, and it did not surprise me that
the lad's courage had failed him. The defection only strengthened,
however, the resolution I had formed that I would not injure M. d'Agen;
though it was some time before I could persuade him that I was in
earnest, and would go alone or not at all. In the end he had to content
himself with lending me his back and breast, which I gladly put on,
thinking it likely enough that I might be set upon before I reached the
castle. And then, the time being about seven, I parted from him with
many embraces and kindly words, and went into the street with my sword
under my cloak.

The town, late in rising after its orgy, lay very still and quiet. The
morning was grey and warm, with a cloudy sky. The flags, which had made
so gay, a show yesterday, hung close to the poles, or flapped idly and
fell dead aga