"Hugues?" There was a question and a cry in the boy's one word.

"Charles, Charles, have you nothing to say to the brave men who almost died for you?"

"Hugues loved me," he answered, and at the bitter pathos of the reply La Mothe forgot the ingratitude. There were so few who loved him. But the girl could not forget.

"Monsieur La Follette, Monsieur La Mothe," she began, but broke off with a cry. "Oh, Monsieur La Follette, you are wounded? What can I do? Words can come afterwards, and all my life I will remember, all my life. Are you dreadfully hurt? Can I not do something?" But though she spoke to La Follette her eyes, after the first glance, were busy searching Stephen La Mothe for just such an ominous stain as showed in brown patches upon La Follette. But there was none. Breathless, dishevelled, his clothing slashed, he was without a scratch, and the strained anxiety faded from her face.

"I can wait," answered La Follette, "we must get the Dauphin to the Chateau. La Mothe, see if they are gone," and he glanced significantly down the stairway. La Follette knew something of war, and there must be sights below it were better Ursula de Vesc should not see lest they haunt her all her life, sleeping or waking.

But the Dauphin, his nerves strained and raw, had grown petulant.

"It is safe enough. I heard them ride off. I want Hugues. I want Hugues."

"And Blaise?"

"Oh! Blaise!" He broke into a discordant laugh. "I told him to be a man and, my faith! he was one. Do you think, Ursula, that Father John will ask my thoughts a second time?"



CHAPTER XXI

DENOUNCED

"It was an epic," said Villon, "a veritable epic, and if you were truly the Homer I called you half the towns in France would claim you for a citizen. As it is you have only been born twice, once in—where was it? No matter, it is of very little importance; it is the second that really counts, and that second birthplace is—Amboise. A man's soul is born of a woman just as his body is. And a man's soul is love. Until love comes he is a lumpish mass of so much flesh without even a spark of the divine."

"Then you," said La Mothe gravely, "have seen many incarnations?"

"Many!"—and Villon's eyes twinkled—"but with each one the pangs of birth grew less violent. You will find it so yourself. But our epic. Though I cannot write it I will sketch it in outline for you. Book the First: Hugues!" He broke off, shaking his head soberly, every trace of his humorous mood gone. "Poor devil of a Hugues! Francois Villon, who made verses, will be remembered, and Hugues, who made history, forgotten. Why cannot I write epics that we might both be remembered together? But no! a tinkle of rhyme leavened with human nature and salted by much bitter experience—that is Francois Villon! I know my limitations. A man can give out nothing better than is put into him. Well, so long as we give our best I don't believe the good God will be hard upon us. Now, then. Book the Second: Martlets and Mullets—there's alliteration for you."

"Martlets and Mullets? Villon, what do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten our friend of the spiked thorn?"

"But the Dauphin swears these were Tristan's men."

"Tristan? Impossible! Tristan is too sure, too careful an artist to spoil his work. Heaven knows I do not love Tristan, but I will give him this credit: when he sets out on a piece of scoundrelly work he carries it through. No, no, I'll wager my Grand Testament to the epic—which will never be written—that it was Molembrais' second cast of the net, and when he drags Amboise a third time there will be fish caught. What's more, La Mothe, there is a traitor in Amboise—a traitor to the boy. First there was Bertrand, then the Burnt Mill: these don't come by accident. But Tristan? Tristan botches no jobs. But to come back to our epic. Book the Third: Blaise! How many dead were there?"

"Four."

"And Blaise, the stableman, has two at the least, if not three, to his credit. When Charles is king—pray heaven Louis does not hear me at Valmy—he should make Blaise, the stableman, a Marshal of France, or perhaps Master of the Horse would suit him better," and Villon chuckled gleefully. He had always a huge appreciation of his own wit, however slender. "There's a lucky dog for you, to grip death round the neck, hugging him to the breast with both arms, and yet get nothing worse than a scratched wrist, a slashed palm, and a dent in a thick skull. Book the Fourth: but here is Monsieur d'Argenton and I had better—— No! I'll stand my ground. The rose garden of Amboise is free to all king's jackals."

"Villon, Villon, why are you so bitter-tongued?"

"Listen to Monsieur de Commines for five minutes and you will know why. And it is not I who am bitter, but the truth. Jackals both, I say."

They were, as Villon had said, in the rose garden. Dusk, the dusk of the day on which Hugues had made history to be forgotten, was thickening fast, but the air was still warm with all the sultriness of noon. To that confined space, with the grey walls towering on three sides, coolness came slowly. The solid masonry held the heat like the living rock itself, and no current of the night wind blowing overhead eddied downward in refreshment.

But solid as was the masonry, and mighty the walls in their frowning strength, there is but little of them left, and of the rose garden not a trace. Time, the great iconoclast, has touched them with his finger and they have passed away like the humble maker of history, while Francois Villon's tinkle of rhyme, leavened with human nature, still leaves its imprint on a whole nation. Perhaps the reason is that the makers of history could have been done without. In these generations the world would be little the worse, little changed had they never been born, and have lost nothing of the joy or brightness of life. In his own generation the patriot is more necessary than the poet, but let four centuries pass and the poet will wield a larger influence than the patriot.

But thick as was the dusk, a dusk thicker than the actual degree of night because of the prevailing shadow, La Mothe saw that Commines was disturbed by an unwonted excitement. Not from his face. It was deeply lined and sternly set, the eyes veiled by gathered brows, the mouth harsh. But he breathed heavily, as a man breathes who has outrun his lung power, and his uneasy fingers clenched and unclenched incessantly. Those who knew Philip de Commines understood the signs and grew watchful. But it was upon Villon that the storm fell.

"For an hour I have been searching for you—in the Chateau, in the Chien Noir, in every tavern in Amboise——"

"And you find me amongst the roses! How little you know my nature, Monsieur d'Argenton!"

"I know it better than I like it," answered Commines grimly. "You lodge at the Chien Noir?"

"It has that honour. The cooking is passable, and I can commend to you its wine of '63. Monsieur La Mothe drinks nothing else."

"As with a fool so with a drunkard, one may make many. But I am not here to talk of Monsieur La Mothe's drinking bouts, though they explain much. You are in the King's service?"

"As we all are; you and I and Monsieur La Mothe. Yes."

"No quibble; you are paid to be faithful?"

"As we all are; you and I and Monsieur La Mothe. Yes."

"Villon, curb your impertinences. I'll not endure them."

"Monsieur d'Argenton, there is a proverb which says, 'Physician, cure thyself.' What did I tell you, Monsieur La Mothe? The five minutes are not up yet." But Stephen La Mothe discreetly answered nothing. One of the first lessons a man learns in the ways of the world is to keep his fingers from between other men's millstones.

"You lodge at the Chien Noir," went on Commines, ignoring the retort; "you are in the King's service and have been paid with your life. Why are you not faithful? Under your very eyes a devilish scheme is hatched and you see nothing. Are you a fool, or have you grown besotted in your age? And you, Stephen, you who were given a free hand in Amboise for this very thing, you who have spent your days in child's play—Stephen, son"—with a sudden gesture Commines put his hand across La Mothe's shoulder, drawing him almost into the hollow of his arm, and the cold severity passed from the hard voice—"don't mistake me, don't think I scoff at to-day's danger, to-day's courage. No. I thank God you are safe, I thank God he has given me back my son Stephen; but what am I to say to the King?"

"Ho! ho!" said Villon; "so it is son Stephen nowadays? Then the play is almost played out?"

"Most of all I blame you," and Commines, his arm still round La Mothe's shoulders, turned upon Villon in a swift access of passion. "How is it you are blind, you who are hand and glove with Jean Saxe? Be sure the King shall hear the truth."

But Villon was unabashed. "What is the truth, Monsieur d'Argenton? Even your friend Tristan would not hang a man without first telling him what for. What is this truth of yours?"

"There is a plot against the King's life."

"In Amboise?"

"In Amboise. The Dauphin, that woman Ursula de Vesc, Hugues——"

"It's a lie," cried La Mothe, shaking himself free from Commines' arm. "A lie, a lie. I have Mademoiselle de Vesc's own word for it that it is a lie."

"And I have proof that it is true."

"Proof? Whose proof?"

Commines hesitated to reply. Already he had overstepped his purpose. Before making his disclosure to La Mothe he had searched for Villon in the hope of drawing some confirmation from him, or what, to a mind willing to be convinced, might pass for confirmation; but in his vexed anger he had spoken prematurely. Weakly he tried to cover his error, first by an appeal, then by domineering. But the lover in Stephen La Mothe was neither to be cajoled nor threatened.

"Stephen, cannot you trust me after all these years? What interest have I but the King's service?"

"Uncle, you said proofs—whose proofs?"

"What is that to you? Do you forget that you are to obey my orders?"

"Proofs, Monsieur d'Argenton, whose proofs?"

"All do not blind themselves as you do." Round he swung upon Villon, shaking a stretched-out finger at him viciously. "Drinking himself drunk like a sot, or hoodwinked by a cunning, unscrupulous woman for her own vile ends. Silence, sir!" he thundered as La Mothe sprang forward in protest. "You ask for proofs, and when I come to proofs you would cry me down with some mewling folly. For her own purposes she has philandered with you, dallied with you, listened to your love songs till the crude boy in you thinks she is a saint."

"A saint," answered La Mothe hoarsely, "a saint. I say so—I say so. A saint as good, as sweet, as pure——" He paused, looking round him in the darkness, and his eyes caught the faintness of a far-off patch of grey suspended in mid-air against the gloom. "As pure and good as these lilies, and the Mother of God they are called, for that, Monsieur d'Argenton, is Ursula de Vesc."

"Good boy," said Villon, rubbing his hands softly; "he has not sat at the feet of Francois Villon these ten days for nothing. I could not have said it better myself."

But Commines was unmoved by the outburst. It was to combat this very unreason of devotion that he had hoped for further confirmation. Villon would surely let slip a phrase which would serve his purpose, a word or two would do, a suggestive hint, and then a little colouring, a little sophistry, would make the little much and the hint a damning reality. To an adept in the art of twisting phrases such an amplification of evidence was easy. Meanwhile an open quarrel would serve no good purpose.

"Words, Stephen," he said more gently, "mere words, and what are rhetoric and declamation against proofs?"

"Whose proofs?" repeated La Mothe doggedly.

Once more, as on the night of his coming to Amboise, he felt the ground slipping from under his feet and was afraid of he knew not what. "So far it is you who have answered with rhetoric and declamation."

"Word-of-mouth proofs."

"Here in the Chateau?"

"No," answered Commines reluctantly, "not just in the Chateau but at its very door. I tell you, Stephen, there can be no mistake. Weeks ago Hugues approached him, first with hints, then more openly. It was the very cunning of Satan, the line of argument was so plausible. The King is old and ailing, life a very weariness, death a relief. In his sick suspicion he grows harsh to cruelty, striking first and judging afterwards. France was afraid, bitterly afraid. Men died daily for no cause, died innocent and as good as murdered, gave names and instances, and because of these France was afraid. None knew who would follow next. For the general good, for the safety of the nation, some one must act. So the Dauphin had sent him, the Dauphin and Mademoiselle de Vesc. That was weeks ago, and you," again Commines turned upon Villon in denunciation, "you must have known."

"Lies, all damnable lies," said La Mothe, choking. "Who is the liar? You won't tell me? But I must know; I must and shall. Not in the Chateau, but at its very door? At its door? Jean Saxe! Is it Jean Saxe, Uncle, is it Jean Saxe? It is! it is! Jean Saxe the—the—— Villon, you said there was a traitor to the Dauphin in Amboise, was that Jean Saxe? A traitor to the Dauphin, a liar to the King; who else could it be but Saxe? It was Jean Saxe who gave Molembrais his chance ten days ago, Jean Saxe who knew of the play in the Burnt Mill to-day, Mademoiselle told him——"

"More proof," said Commines. "She and Jean Saxe are in collusion."

"Collusion to kidnap the Dauphin? Mademoiselle de Vesc and Jean Saxe in league against the boy? Uncle, you are mad and your proof proves too much. If all the world were one Jean Saxe I would believe Ursula de Vesc's No! against him."

"Good boy," repeated Villon, speaking, as it were, to the world at large. "The very first time I saw him I said he was the image of myself. Monsieur d'Argenton, what is Jean Saxe's story?"

"That by Mademoiselle de Vesc's directions Hugues sounded him on behalf of the Dauphin, but vaguely at first. There was great discontent, said Hugues, and greater fear. The death of de Molembrais, guaranteed though he was by a safe-conduct, had set France asking who was secure if once the King had determined on his destruction. Even loyalty was no safeguard. In the King's sick suspicion his most faithful servants might be the first to suffer. Not a day passed but there was a hanging, and de Molembrais was a warning to both high and low. For a man to keep his own life at all cost was no murder."

"True," said Villon. "Toute beste garde sa pel! Yes, monsieur?"

"That was the gist of it; vague as you see, but significant. Then, two days ago, Hugues spoke a second time, urging Saxe to a decision. If the Dauphin were king, all France would breathe freely, all France would say, Thank God! The generous nature of the boy was well known. There would be rewards. Mademoiselle de Vesc had authorized him to promise——"

But La Mothe could control himself no longer. Through Commines' indictment, coldly, almost phlegmatically delivered, he stood motionless and silent, his hands clenched, every muscle tense with restraint. It was the fighting attitude, the attitude of a man who waits in the dark for a blow he knows not whence, but a blow which will surely come. Now the restraint snapped.

"Villon, for God's sake, do you believe this lie?"

It was an exceeding bitter cry, and the pain of it pierced through even Commines' armour of calmness. But Villon, though he shivered a little, only shook his head. His face, dimly seen, was full of a grave concern.

"Some one has spoken to Saxe," he said. "Hugues or another. I know Saxe well, he has not brains enough to imagine so great a truth."

"A truth!" cried Commines, catching at the phrase he waited for. "Stephen, Stephen, all along I warned you she was dangerous."

"Very dangerous," said Villon, "I have felt it myself. No man is safe. In '57—or was it '58?—there was just such another. Her mother kept the little wine shop at the corner of——"

"Take care, sot, it is the King you trifle with, not me. You said Saxe had told the truth."

"That the King and France are both sick; yes, Monsieur d'Argenton."

"No, no, but that Saxe had been approached."

"By Hugues or another; yes, I believe that."

"You hear, Stephen? Does that satisfy you?"

"But I also believe that Saxe, being a fool, has added a little on his own account," went on Villon as if Commines had never spoken.

"Then what is the truth?"

"You ask that of a poet? As well ask it of a courtier—or a king's minister," he added, and turned to La Mothe. "Were I you I would set them face to face this very night."

"But she has already denied it."

"All the more reason. A truth will wait till morning, but a lie should be killed overnight. Lies breed fast and die hard."

"But she may refuse."

"If I know women," said Villon, "Mademoiselle de Vesc will refuse you nothing."



CHAPTER XXII

"WE MUST SAVE HER TOGETHER"

But while Stephen La Mothe still hesitated Commines took action. He recognized that sooner or later there must be a confronting. Ursula de Vesc, however deeply implicated, was no patient Griselda to accept judgment without a protest. Tacit admission would condemn the Dauphin equally with herself, and she might be trusted to fight for the Dauphin with every wile and subterfuge open to a desperate woman. In her natural attitude of indignation she would certainly force a crisis. The sooner the crisis came the better, and amongst those for whom that was better Philip de Commines was not the least. With all his heart he loathed the part he was compelled to play, even while determined to play it to its ghastly end. But to some men, Commines amongst them, the irrevocable brings a drugging of the sensibilities. When that which must be done could not be undone he would be at peace.

The sooner the crisis came the better, too, for Stephen La Mothe, and Commines' sympathies went out to him with an unwonted tenderness. The lad's nerves were flayed raw, and for him also there could be no peace until the inevitable end had come. But just what that end would be, and how it was to be reached, Commines feared to discuss even with himself.

But the first necessity was that Ursula de Vesc's complicity should be brought home to her. Let that be done, and La Mothe's despair might clear aside all difficulties, though, without doubt, the poor boy would suffer. There is no such pain as when love dies in the full glory of its strength. But then would come the ministrations of Time, the healer. Mother Nature of the rough hand and tender heart would scar the hurt, and little by little its agony would numb into a passive submission.

It was a truth he had proved. Suzanne's death had been as the plucking out of the very roots of life. In that first tremendous realization of loss there had been no place left for even God Himself. But that had passed. The All-Merciful has placed bounds on the tide of human suffering: Thus far shalt thou go, and no further. The maimed roots of life had budded afresh, and if no flower of love had shed its fragrance to bless the days, there had been peace. So would it be with Stephen La Mothe. But the Valley of Tribulation must first be crossed, and it would be the mercy of kindness to shorten the passage, even though the plunge into its shadows was the more swift. For that there must be conviction, and for the conviction a confronting. Villon was right, Ursula de Vesc and Jean Saxe should be set face to face within the hour.

"Monsieur Villon," he said with unaccustomed courtesy, "I agree with you. Hugues is dead, the Dauphin too high above us, but Mademoiselle de Vesc has the right to know the peril she stands in. Will you do us all a kindness and bring Jean Saxe to the Chateau? Monsieur La Mothe and I will——" he paused, searching for a word which would be conclusive and yet without offence, "will summon Mademoiselle de Vesc."

"It is an outrage," said La Mothe stubbornly, "and I protest against it, protest utterly."

"Stephen, try and understand," and Commines laid his hand upon the younger man's shoulder with something more than the persuasive appeal of the father who, to his sorrow, is at variance with the son of his love. It was the gesture of the friend, the equal, the elder in authority who might command but elects to reason. "Consider my position a moment. By the King's command I stand in his place in Amboise. If he were here——"

"God forbid!" said Villon. "The King is like heaven—dearly loved afar off."

"But his justice is here——"

"And his mercy?"

"And his mercy," repeated Commines coldly, "the mercy that gave you life when justice would have hung you as a rogue and a thief. Of all men you are the last who should sneer at the King's mercy. And now will you call Jean Saxe, or must I go myself?"

"As my friend La Mothe decides," answered Villon. "I advise it myself. Give a lie a night's start and you will never catch it up."

"Stephen, son, be wise."

With a gesture of despair La Mothe would have turned away, but Commines held him fast. His faith was unshaken, but the natural reaction from the day's tense emotion had sapped its buoyancy, leaving it negative and inert rather than positive and aggressive. The half-hour's slackless concentration of nerve and muscle in the defence of the stairway had drained him of strength and energy like the crisis of a fever. For him Ursula de Vesc's curt No! stood against the world; but Philip de Commines was the King's justice in Amboise, and against Jean Saxe's accusation her denial would carry no weight—no weight at all. But, though the gesture was one of helplessness, Villon chose to construe it into consent.

"Good!" he said cordially, "it is best, much the best. In half an hour I will bring Saxe to—let me see, the Hercules room, I think, Monsieur d'Argenton? It is small, but large enough for the purpose, and as it has only one door it can be easily guarded."

"No guards," said Commines harshly. "There must be no publicity."

Villon laughed unpleasantly. His shifting mood had, almost for the first time in his life, felt kindly disposed towards Commines as he saw his evident solicitude for La Mothe, but that was forgotten in the contemptuous recall of a past he held should no longer rise against him. What the King forgave the King's minister should forget. The thrust had wounded his vanity, and now, as he saw his opening, he promptly thrust back in return.

"You are the King's justice in Amboise and would have no man know it! That is true modesty, Monsieur d'Argenton! No, don't fear, there will be no publicity. Monsieur La Mothe, he calls you son; but friend is more than kin, more than family, remember that Francois Villon says so."

Commines' answer was an upward shake of the head, a lifting of the shoulders hardly perceptible in the darkness.

"It is the nature of curs to snarl," he said. "But his impertinence grows insufferable and must be muzzled." Linking his arm into La Mothe's he drew him slowly along the garden path. Both were preoccupied by the same desire, to win the other to his own way of thinking, but it was the more cautious elder who spoke first. He would appeal to the very affection Villon had gibed at.

"Stephen, dear lad, with all my heart I grieve for you. Would to God it were anything but this. Mademoiselle de Vesc has always opposed me, but that is nothing; has always striven to thwart me, but for your sake that could be forgotten; has always flouted and belittled me, but for your sake that could be forgiven. You are as the son of my love, and what is there that love will not forgive—will not forget? These weigh nothing, nothing at all. In the face of this—this—tremendous crime against the King, against all France, I count them nothing, less than nothing. Dear lad, you must be brave. This worthless woman——"

"No, Uncle, no, not that, never that!" La Mothe's voice was as level and quiet as Commines' own, and the elder knew thereby that his difficulty was the greater. Quietness is always strong, always assured of itself. "I do not believe Saxe speaks the truth."

"Saxe is the spark, and I told you I smelt smoke. Even Villon admits, much against his will, that some one has approached Saxe."

"But not Hugues, and if that is untrue then all is untrue."

"No: there is no logic in that. Hugues or another, it matters little who it was. It is the fact that damns, and Saxe is explicit. And how can Villon be sure it was not Hugues?"

"Uncle, Uncle, you can't believe it, in your heart you can't believe it. All these days you have seen her, so gracious, so gentle, so womanly. It can't be true, it can't. There is some horrible mistake."

"Saxe is explicit, and Villon agrees with him," repeated Commines, driving home the inexorable point. "Nor can I help myself; the King has left me no alternative."

"Mademoiselle de Vesc has denied it to me, and I believe her."

"You believe her because you love her."

"No," answered La Mothe simply, "I believe her because I have faith in her, but even though she were all Saxe says, and more, I would stand by her because I love her."

Commines paused in his slow walk, slipped his hand from La Mothe's arm, and they stood silent side by side. Then in his perplexity he moved a few paces away, halted, turned again and faced La Mothe.

"Poor lad, and I have no alternative. The King and my duty alike allow me none. Stephen, in self-defence I must be frank with you. It is my firm belief that the King has evidence he cannot show openly——"

"And so a pretext will be enough? God in heaven! is that justice?"

"No, there must be something more than a pretext, something more than a lie; but Saxe will be enough."

"It will be enough if Saxe's lies cannot be disproved?"

"If Saxe cannot be disproved," corrected Commines. "I cannot admit that Saxe lies."

"And what then?"

Again Commines turned away. Humanity's Iron Age was as stern, as selfish, as callous, as cruel as in the days of Attila the Hun. Christianity, after its almost fifteen centuries, had no more than, as it were, warmed it through with its gentle fires. There was as yet no softening. It was true that some increasing flowers of civilization obscured the brutality, some decorations of art glorified it, but underneath the beauty and the art the native ruthlessness remained unchanged. Might founded a throne upon the ruin of weaker nations, cemented its strength with the blood of innocence, set the crown upon its own head, and reigned in arrogant defiance of right or justice.

From the barbarous Muscovite in the north to the polished Spaniard in the south the conditions scarcely varied. Everywhere there was the same spirit. A Louis pushed wide the borders of France by theft and the law of the stronger arm, a Ferdinand offered up his holocaust to the greater glory of God, a Philip yet to come would steep the Netherlands in blood to the very dikes that the same God might be worshipped in violation of the worshipper's conscience, in England a Crookback Richard had neither pity nor scruple when a crown was the reward of ruthlessness and murder.

Nor in the high places of religion was there a nobler law. A Sixtus, at that very moment, was letting loose the horrors of an unjust war upon Florence and Ferrara in the name of the Prince of Peace, while the sinister figure of Alexander Borgia sat upon the steps of the Papal throne biding its time. If the meek inherited the earth, it was commonly a territory six feet long and two in breadth. Everywhere the ancient rule was still the modern plan: those took who had the power, and those kept who could. There were exceptions, but exceptions were rare. Even at the Round Table there was only one Galahad.

Commines did not differ greatly from his age, or he would have been no fit minister for Louis. A tool is no longer a tool if it is not obedient to the hand which guides it. Let it fail in the work set it to do and it is cast aside into forgottenness or broken up as waste. He had no liking, he had even a loathing, for the part allotted to him, and he played it unwillingly; left to himself, he would not have played it at all. Ursula de Vesc might have lived out her life in peace so far as he was concerned; but Ursula de Vesc stood in his master's path, and however distasteful it might be she must be swept aside, now that Saxe made it possible so to do, and yet hold a semblance of justice. Only through her could the Dauphin be reached, therefore Commines steeled his nerves.

But to Stephen, partly for his own sake, and yet more for the memory of the dear dead woman, his heart went out in a greater tenderness than that of cold sympathy. Human love in the individual has been the salt which has kept the body politic from utter rottenness. How to soften the blow to Stephen was his thought as he paced slowly through the cool darkness of the night: how to do more than that, how to link Stephen to his own fortunes, which would surely rise after the successful execution of this commission of tragedy. Slowly he paced into the darkness, turned, and paced as slowly back again, to find Stephen standing motionless where he had left him, his hands linked behind his back, his shoulders squared, his face very sternly set.

"And if Jean Saxe's lies cannot be disproved? What follows then?"

"Stephen, we must save her together." He paused, but La Mothe made no reply. What could he answer? To continue protesting her innocence with nothing but his own word and hers to back the assertion was but beating the air; to ask, How shall we save her? would, he thought, tacitly admit her guilt. So there was silence until Commines went on slowly and with an evident difficulty; he would need all his diplomacy, he realized, all his powers of sophistry and persuasion if he was to carry Stephen La Mothe with him along the path he proposed to follow.

"Let us face facts," he began, almost roughly. "Saxe will leave me no alternative. No! say nothing, I know it all beforehand, and with all my soul I wish this had not fallen to my lot. And yet, Stephen, it is better I should be here than Tristan; Tristan has a rough way with women. Poor lad, that hurts you, does it? Yes, I am better than Tristan, even though Saxe leaves me no alternative. But we shall save her together," and this time Stephen La Mothe, out of the horror of the thought of Ursula de Vesc given over to the mercies of such a man as Tristan, found it in his heart to ask, "How?" The answer came promptly, but with grave deliberation.

"By the King's mercy."

"What mercy had the King on Molembrais? Will he be more merciful to a woman?"

"Then by his gratitude. Stephen, for her sake we must win the King's gratitude together."

"I do not understand."

"Behind the girl, but joined with her, stands——"

"The Dauphin? My God, Uncle, not that way."

La Mothe's voice was strange even to his own ears, so harsh and dry was it, the voice of age rather than of youth, and, indeed, he felt as if in this last hour he had suddenly grown so old that the world was a weariness.

"There were three in this plot," answered Commines, unmoved from his slow gravity, "Hugues, the Dauphin, and Mademoiselle de Vesc. Hugues is dead, but two still remain."

"His own son, his own, his one son? No, no, it cannot be, it cannot."

"I grant that it is incredible, but Saxe leaves no loophole for doubt."

"I do not mean that. I meant it could not be that the King—I cannot say it; his one son."

"He has no son but France. Do you remember what I told you that night in my room? Better the one should suffer than the many. And now there is a double reason, a double incentive to us both. Mademoiselle de Vesc's life hangs upon it. Follow the chain of reasoning, and, for God's sake, Stephen, follow closely. There is more than the life of a girl in all this. Jean Saxe cannot be suppressed even if we dared attempt it; Francois Villon, the King's jackal, who holds his life by a thread, knows everything. Of all men he dares not keep silence, of all men he would not keep silence if he dared, scum that he is. Within two days the King will know all Saxe's accusations, and if we do not act for ourselves another—Tristan or another—will come in our place. We will have destroyed ourselves for nothing, and there will be no hope for the girl, none. Can you not guess Tristan's methods with women? But, Stephen, if we act, if we return to Valmy and say, 'Sire, we have done our duty to the nation, with heavy hearts and in bitter sorrow we have done it: even though we have laid love itself on the altar of sacrifice, we have done it, give us this one life in return'—can the King refuse? Remember, if it is not we it will be another, and if we have no claim to ask, there will be no life given. Nor can we have any claim but obedience. I see no other way, no other hope."

The touch upon his arm was half appeal, half admonition, wholly friendly, but La Mothe winced as he shrank from it. There are times when human sympathy is the very salvation of the reason and the one comfort possible to the bruised spirit, but now the solitary instinct of the sick animal was upon him and he longed to be alone. Some sorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow. There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest of helpless nature against a wanton and callous outrage.

As plainly as if Commines had said it in so many words he understood that, sinless or sinning, Ursula de Vesc was to be sacrificed to some state advantage; he understood, too, that neither Commines nor the King cared greatly whether she was innocent or guilty, and that but for his sake Commines would have given her hardly a second thought. Saxe lies! What matter? The state must progress. Saxe lies! What matter? Better one suffer than the many. Saxe lies! What matter? We will save her together by the one way possible.

Did he remember that first night in Amboise? Had he ever forgotten? Even in his plays of make-believe had he ever forgotten? The mind has a way of laying aside the unpalatable in some pigeon-hole of memory; it is out of sight, not forgotten. Yes, he remembered. Then it had been obedience to the King, service to the man to whom he owed everything and a duty to France. Now, more tremendous than all, Ursula de Vesc's life was thrown suddenly into the scale. That was Commines' plain statement. Nor was he conscious of any resentment against Commines. If Jean Saxe held to his story Commines could have no alternative, and if not Commines, it would be another, another less kindly.

No? His rebellion, the bitter upheaval of spirit, was against the conspiracy of iron circumstances which hedged him round on every side, a rebellion such as a man might feel who finds himself in silent darkness bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, while his brain is still quick and every nerve quivering with the passionate desire for life. "I see no hope," said Commines, "no hope but the one way," and Stephen La Mothe knew that one way was murder. Abruptly he turned upon his heel.

"The half-hour must be almost up," he said; "let us go to her."



CHAPTER XXIII

JEAN SAXE IS EXPLICIT

"Say to Mademoiselle de Vesc that Monsieur d'Argenton requires to speak with her in the Hercules room." It was the Judge who spoke. Already Commines stood in Louis' place to search, sift, find, and his tone was as cold and curt as the words were brusque. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "You can say, too, that Monsieur La Mothe is with him."

"No," said La Mothe; "omit that part of it."

For a moment Commines hesitated, annoyed by a tone curter and colder than his own, but after a glance at La Mothe's set face he motioned to the servant to go. That was not the moment to precipitate a conflict.

"Stephen, why not? It is the truth."

"Great heavens! do we want the truth?" answered La Mothe.

"But we are not friendly, she and I, and she may not come; you said so yourself. Remember, we must have no scandal, no publicity."

"Yes, what you have to do will be best done in the dark."

"Stephen, be just. You know I mean that Saxe's story is not one to be blazed abroad. Besides, nothing will be done to-night."

"But to-morrow, or next day?"

"It was not for the Dauphin's sake you risked your life this afternoon."

"That is quite true. It was for Mademoiselle de Vesc, and it may be risked again."

"Stephen, what do you mean?" But La Mothe, striding ahead as if impatient to face the issue and have done with uncertainties, returned no answer. There could be no answer until he saw how events fell out.

The Hercules chamber was named after the tapestry which hid the dull grey plaster of its walls. From the one door—and that there should be but one was unusual in an age when to provide for the strategy of retreat was common prudence—where the infant Hero strangled with chubby hands the twin serpents sent for his destruction, the story of his labours told itself with all the direct simplicity of medieval art.

No chronology was followed, the embroiderer having chosen her scenes at pleasure or as the exigencies of space demanded. Here, Samson-like, he tore the Numean lion jaw from jaw, his knee sunk in the shaggy chest, his shoulders ripped to the bone as the hooked claws gripped the muscles, his mighty torso a dripping crimson in the scheme of colour. There he cleansed the Augean stable in a faithfulness of detail more admirable in its approach to nature than its appeal to the sensibilities, the artist having left nothing to the imagination; beyond was the more human note, and Omphale bound him to her by a single thread stronger than all the chains ever riveted in Vulcan's forge. Next, with perhaps a significance of symbolism, the shirt of Nessus tortured him to madness with its scorching fires till the huge limbs writhed and the broad, kindly face was all a-sweat with agony, but—and now it was the door again—the benediction of peace crowned the end. The labours, the sorrows, the fiery trials were behind the back for ever, the faults and failures were forgiven or atoned for; after the stress of toil, the weariness of struggle, came the blessedness of rest; after humanity, divinity and the imperishable glory of high Olympus. Crude in its art, angular in its execution, there still was something of the soul of the worker stitched with the canvas. To Stephen La Mothe, touched at times by a poet's comprehension, it seemed not altogether a myth,—a type, perhaps; only, being very human, he hungered with a bitter hunger for the crowning of the peace and the divinity of love while life was life. It requires a robust faith to believe that Olympus can bring anything better than the best of earth.

A carved oak bench, black with age, stood beneath the centre of the three narrow windows piercing the outer wall; a four-branched copper lamp gave light from the polished table in the middle of the room; here and there, flanking the oaken bench, at the ends of the room, and at either side of the wide fireplace, were chairs and stools. A few wolfskin rugs dotted the floor. Villon and Saxe had not yet arrived.

"Mademoiselle begs that she may be excused to-night; she is very tired."

"But she cannot be excused," began Commines, when La Mothe intervened.

"Say that Monsieur La Mothe very greatly regrets she should be disturbed when so weary, but as it is of importance to Monseigneur he trusts she will excuse Monsieur d'Argenton's importunity."

"I told you how it would be," said Commines as the servant left the room, "you might as well have given your name first as last."

But La Mothe shook his head. "There is a difference, and she will understand." Then the restraint he had put upon himself with so much difficulty snapped for a moment: "Uncle, for God's sake, be gentle with her."

"I will be all I dare, but I trust neither Saxe nor Villon," and as he spoke the two entered the room.

In spite of a strong effort at self-control the inn-keeper was visibly ill at ease, while Villon, on his part, was complacently, almost offensively, cheerful. In a characteristic Puckish humour he had played alternately on Saxe's hopes and fears, but refusing all definite information beyond the bare statement that Monsieur d'Argenton had sent for him peremptorily. Why? How could Francois Villon say why? He was no confidant of the Lord High Jackal of all the King's jackals. Saxe, who was so friendly with couriers from Valmy, should know why. Perhaps, humble though he, Jean Saxe, was, he had rendered the King some service of late? and at the hint Saxe glowed, with expectation. Who was so generous a paymaster as Louis! Perhaps, on the other hand,—and the wrinkles of Villon's many wrinkled face deepened into puckers,—Jean Saxe knew too much. That was dangerous. Amboise was like Valmy, more entered than came out. Louis had many ways of paying debts. There was Guy de Molembrais, for instance——, but Saxe was frankly sweating and Villon broke off. The second hint was clearer even than the first, and Saxe felt that both were true.

But when he would have spoken Commines impatiently motioned him to be quiet, flinging a "Wait!" at him as one might a command to a restless dog, and at the evil augury the drops gathered anew round the edge of his close-cropped hair; gathered and swelled until they trickled down the cunning, stupid face. Villon, he noticed, and found another evil significance in the act, drew away from him, leaving him solitary just when the warm nearness of human kind would have been a comfort.

They had not long to wait. Hearing a movement in the passage Villon threw open the door, closing it again behind Ursula de Vesc. Then he leaned against it like one interested but indifferent in his interest. The girl was pitifully pale. Double lines of care creased the smoothness of the forehead; the weariness she had plead had been no pretence, but was written plainly in the languid gait, the drooped lids, and the dark patches beneath the eyes. By her side walked Charlemagne, and half a yard behind the three puppies trotted sleepily, Charlot lagging last; even in his anxious preoccupation La Mothe noticed it was Charlot, the best beloved of the three because it was the weakest.

Her first glance was for La Mothe, her second, and this time she bowed slightly, was towards Commines, then it fell upon Saxe, and the brows were raised in a mute interrogation, but there was neither apprehension nor dismay. Stepping forward La Mothe placed a chair beside the table, and, crossing the room, she sat down with a murmur of thanks, then she turned to Commines. Drawing back a step La Mothe, half behind her, rested, his hand on the chair-back, and the stage was set.

"Mademoiselle," began Commines, "Saxe, whom you know, told me a strange story to-day, and it seemed to us it was your right to hear it as soon as possible."

"Us? Who are us, Monsieur d'Argenton?"

"Monsieur La Mothe and myself."

"I agree with Monsieur d'Argenton that it is your right to hear it," said La Mothe, "but in everything else I disagree. For me your one word to-day was enough."

"So that is why Monsieur d'Argenton is in Amboise?"

"The story is this," went on Commines, studiously ignoring the cold contempt in her voice. But she interrupted him.

"Let Saxe tell his own story; why else is he here? It is always safer to get such things first-hand. Now, Saxe?"

Turning her shoulder on Commines she confronted Saxe. She knew she was, somehow, on her defence, but not the offence alleged against her. All day La Mothe's unexpected question had troubled her, and vaguely she had connected it with the attempt upon the Dauphin at the Burnt Mill, though how she, the Dauphin's almost one friend in Amboise, could have knowledge of the attempt she could not understand. With the failure of the attack she had thought the incident closed, but now Jean Saxe had a story to tell, a story in some way linked to Stephen La Mothe's question, a question which flushed the pallor of even her weariness when she remembered how widely it had differed from what her thought had been.

But Jean Saxe was in no haste with his tale. Jean Saxe shuffled his feet, licked his dry lips, and caught at his breath. His throat was drier than Villon's had ever been, and Villon's was the driest throat in Amboise. A modest man, though an innkeeper, Jean Saxe did not know which way to look now that he was, for the moment, the centre of the world. Either the grey eyes, their lids no longer drooping, searched him out, or Commines' stern gaze stared him down, or, worst of all, he met the sardonic light with which Villon beamed his satisfaction at a scene quite to his humour, and so Jean Saxe was dumb, remembering that Louis had many ways of paying his debts, and more went into Amboise than came out again. For the trusted servant of so generous a King Jean Saxe was not happy.

"Come, Saxe, come. Tell me what you told me this afternoon, neither more nor less. There is nothing in it to your discredit."

"Yes, monseigneur, certainly. I have nothing to hide. I have always been the King's most humble, faithful, devoted——"

"Leave that aside. Come to your tale and tell the whole truth."

"Of course, monseigneur. Hugues came to me——"

"When did Hugues go to you?" It was Ursula de Vesc who spoke. From his place behind her La Mothe could see the upward defiant tilt of the head as she asked the question.

"Let him tell his story his own way," said Commines, "or you will confuse him."

"As you will, but Hugues is dead and cannot defend himself," and the defiance passed as, with a sigh, the girl sank wearily into her chair, felt La Mothe's hand where it rested upon the back, and leaned hastily forward, then settled slowly into her place again. As for Stephen La Mothe, the beating of his heart quickened, but he stood unmoved. The touch comforted them both.

"Hugues came two days ago——"

"That was the second time. When did he come first?"

"Three weeks ago, monseigneur."

"Are you sure?"

"It was a week before your lordship came to Amboise. I remember it perfectly because——"

"Never mind why; that you remember and are sure of the day is enough. I want you to be exact. It was a week before Monsieur La Mothe and I arrived?"

"Yes, monseigneur." Saxe had thrown off his nervousness. He no longer shuffled his feet but stood breast square to the world. Commines' questions had loosened the thread of his story, and he was ready to run it off the reel without a tangle. "He said the King was very sick in Valmy, so sick and full of suffering that every hour of life was an hour of misery. It would be pure happiness, said he, pure charity and a blessing if such a life were ended. He was sure the King himself had no wish to live."

"That," said Ursula de Vesc, her eyes fixed on vacancy, "is so very like what we all know of His Majesty."

"Yes, mademoiselle. Then he went on to say that those who helped the poor suffering King to relief would be his best friends, and it ought to be no surprise if there were such friends."

"Were there names mentioned?"

"No, monseigneur, not then."

"But this afternoon you told me——"

"I thought Saxe was to tell his story his own way?" broke in Ursula de Vesc, tartly.

"Mademoiselle de Vesc, you cannot know the peril you stand in."

"Peril from what, Monsieur d'Argenton?"

"from the justice of the King."

"If it be only from his justice then I stand in no peril. But I, and all who love the Dauphin, know well how the King's justice deals with Amboise. Saxe, go on with your story your own way. No names were mentioned that day? What then?"

"Hugues said the King's sickness made him peevish and suspicious, so that he doubted even his own friends. No one was safe, neither high nor low, and no one could tell who would follow the same road as Monsieur de Molembrais, whose safe-conduct couldn't save him. 'Even you, Saxe,' he said, 'faithful as you have been and true servant to the King, not even you are safe, and you know a man's first duty is to himself.'"

Francois Villon could not forgo the favourite tag of philosophy whereby he had shaped his own career, "Toute beste garde sa pel! and that was the first time, Saxe?"

"The first time," repeated Saxe. "I think that was all he said then, monseigneur, or the gist of it, for he repeated it over and over again."

"Then come to the second. When was it?"

"Two days ago, monseigneur."

"Tell it your own way; or, stay a moment. Mademoiselle de Vesc," and Commines turned to the girl, his face both grave and troubled, "help us to be your friends, help us to save you from yourself before it is too late. Much can be forgiven to a generous devotion however misplaced. The King, I am sure, will see it in that light. I beg, I pray you, pray you to speak before Saxe speaks. If not for your own sake, then for the Dauphin's, for——" he paused, and, lifting his eyes, glanced at Stephen La Mothe bolt upright within touch of her, "for the happiness of a life help us to help you."



CHAPTER XXIV

A PROPHET WITHOUT HONOUR

At the appeal La Mothe's grip upon the chair grew more tense, and his hand so shook that the whole chair was shaken as he felt the girl stiffen against his knuckles. What his hopes were he did not dare admit, though the foundations of his faith were never shaken. Better even than the girl he understood how great was the issue Commines played for in his effort to move her from her silence. Was it an honest appeal or was it a trap? Would the love of a father accept a hinted repentance, a veiled regret as sufficient? or did Commines, astute and unscrupulous in his master's service, invite a contrition that he might triumphantly declare, Here is proof? A single word spoken in reversal of her afternoon's denial would justify—— But swiftly as thought grew from thought Ursula de Vesc was yet swifter in her reply.

"I think you mean to be kind, Monsieur d'Argenton, and for that I am grateful. Saxe, we are waiting."

"Two days ago Hugues came to me again. I was in the stables——"

"Where Hugues flung you into the horse-trough last month for speaking disrespectfully of the Dauphin?"

"Mademoiselle, you must not interrupt; later you can question Saxe if you wish."

"I wished to show you what good friends they were, these two. Hugues cannot speak for himself."

"He had need of me," said Saxe sullenly, "and that was the reason he came to me as I say. I was grooming Grey Roland. 'He saved a King for France,' said Hugues, with his hand on his neck, 'and what a King he will make, so grateful, so generous. Not a man who helps him will be forgotten. And it won't be long now. Saxe,' he said, 'you should join us while there is time.' 'Who are us?' said I. But he wouldn't answer that. 'You could hang us all if you knew,' he said. So I told him that unless I had at least one name I wouldn't listen to him. What was he but a servant? So he stood rubbing his chin awhile, then he said, 'We need you, Saxe, for you have the horses we want and you know Valmy, so I'll tell you who is the brain of it all and the keenest next to the Dauphin himself—Mademoiselle de Vesc.'"

"A lie," said La Mothe, "the damnedest lie that ever came out of hell. Finish your lies, Saxe."

Sternly Commines turned upon him. "You are here only on sufferance; either leave the room or be silent."

"Monsieur d'Argenton, it is every man's right——" began La Mothe; but Ursula de Vesc, turning in her chair, laid a hand upon his arm.

"Wait," she said, smiling up at him bravely; "but I am grateful to you all the same. So I am the brain of it all, Saxe?"

"I only know what Hugues told me," answered Saxe, looking straight before him. Of the two he was the more disturbed. His scalp tingled, and again the little points of perspiration were glistening on his forehead. Her quietness frightened him. To have shouted down a passion of protest, a passion of terrified, angry denial, would have been more natural. "He said you sent him on both days, you and Monseigneur. You were both afraid the King would suspect the truth——"

"The truth!" repeated the girl, and for the first time her voice shook; "but it is all a lie, as Monsieur La Mothe says, a clumsy lie, and yet I see that it may serve its purpose. It is not the truth the King requires. Monsieur d'Argenton, I tell you formally that what Saxe has said is absolutely untrue."

"Saxe is explicit, you can question him when he has finished," answered Commines coldly. For him the King stood behind Jean Saxe, and no mere denial would content Louis or set his fears at rest. "Go on, Saxe. The King would suspect the truth?"

"So he said, monseigneur, and so there was need for haste," said Saxe.

"Then why wait two days before telling Monsieur d'Argenton? Why wait two days before warning the King? Why wait until Hugues was dead?"

"There was a courier from Valmy to-day," said Villon, speaking for the first time, and, as it seemed, irrelevantly.

Commines turned upon him sharply. "What has that to do with it? He brought letters from the King addressed to me. Monsieur La Mothe knows their contents."

"And for Jean Saxe," retorted Villon; "letters from the King for Jean Saxe and Monsieur d'Argenton!"

"Ah!" said mademoiselle the second time, "so that is why Monsieur d'Argenton is in Amboise."

"That is why," answered Commines, his hand stretched out in denunciation. "At Valmy we more than guessed your treason. But it was hard to believe that a woman could so corrupt a boy, that a son could so conspire against a father, and I came to Amboise probing the truth. And every day proof has piled upon proof, presumptive proof I grant, but proof damning and conclusive nevertheless. Every day the King has been held up to loathing and contempt. Every day the woman—you, Mademoiselle de Vesc, you—egged on the boy to worse than disaffection. Every day the son reviled the father, even to telling God's own priest that his one thought was hate—everlasting hate. The spirit to hurt and the accursed will were there, more shameless every day, more shameless and more insolent; but until to-day, until Jean Saxe spoke, there was no proof that the courage to act, the courage to carry out the evident ill desire was callously plotting to set France shuddering with horror. But Saxe has spoken. That he should have spoken earlier is beside the point. He has spoken at last and the truth is stripped bare."

"No truth," said mademoiselle, "no truth; before God, no truth." She was rigidly upright in her chair, her eyes blazing like cold stars, her face very pale. Every limb, every muscle, was trembling, her hand pressed under her breast as when La Mothe had seen her for the first time. "No truth except that the Dauphin has said unwise things at times and I also. To that I confess."

"You confess because you cannot deny," answered Commines, "and had Hugues not tampered with Saxe the truth might never have been known until all France stood aghast at the tragedy. That Hugues is dead matters nothing. His death does not affect the issue. He would have denied it had he lived. But now we know without a doubt that you and he, and that unhappy boy, the Dauphin—Villon, who is that fumbling at the latch? Let no one in, and bid whoever knocks begone whence he came."

But instead of obeying Villon flung the door wide. The Dauphin was on the threshold, half dressed, his shoes unbuckled, his laces awry, his face cadaverous in its pallor. He had been crying, and the traces of the unwiped tears lined his cheeks. Underneath the dull eyes, duller than common, were livid hollows, and he shook from head to foot in a nervous terror.

"Hugues," he said, his voice a-quaver. "How am I to do without Hugues? He always slept at my door, and now I have no one—no one at all. Ursula, what has happened? What are they saying to you?"

Mechanically obedient to the dominant power of custom rather than to any conscious will, Ursula de Vesc had risen at the boy's entrance. But the strain of an enforced calmness is greater than that of any passionate outburst, and only the support of the table kept her on her feet. Against this she leaned, her open hand flat upon it.

"Monseigneur—Charles—oh! why did you come just now?" Her voice broke as it had not broken when confronting Saxe or braving the bitter denunciation Commines had poured upon her. But the boy's presence fretted her realization to the quick. It was not she alone before whose feet the gulf had opened so suddenly. "Go back to your room. Some one will take Hugues' place,—good, brave, loyal Hugues."

"Sleep in peace, Monseigneur," said La Mothe, "I will take Hugues' place to-night."

But Commines thought he saw his way to end a scene which had grown embarrassing, and at the same time take the first step along a path which could have but one end.

"There is no need for that. One of my men will guard the Dauphin."

"Your man? A man from Valmy sleep at my door? Thank you, Monseigneur d'Argenton, but I do not wish to sleep so soundly as that."

"And yet you wished your father to sleep sound?"

"My quarrel with my father is between the King and the Dauphin," answered the boy with one of those sudden accessions of dignity which were as characteristic as they were disconcerting. "Do you, sir, know your place and keep it. Ursula, what is Saxe doing here at this time of night?"

Though he addressed Mademoiselle de Vesc by name, Charles looked round him as he spoke. The question was for the room at large. But no one answered him. It was no part of Commines' plan to make a public charge against the Dauphin. There was no need to make such a charge, it could only provoke a scene of violence, of denial, of protest, of recrimination, and raise a storm whose echoes might pass beyond the walls of Amboise. Not that way would he earn the King's thanks, so he held his peace. But the Dauphin was not to be cowed by silence.

"Ursula, what have they been saying to you? All these men against one woman is cowardly. If I were a man like Monsieur La Mothe——"

"Hush, Charles; Monsieur La Mothe is our friend."

"I know. He saved us both to-day, me for the second time. Monsieur La Mothe, when I am king, I won't forget. But why is Saxe here? Villon, you are his friend, why is Saxe here?"

Villon had closed the door behind the Dauphin, resting his back against it as before. His shrewd clear eyes had watched every phase of the scene from its beginning. Twice he had spoken, twice or thrice he had laughed his soft unctuous chuckle as if his thoughts pleased him. Now, directly addressed, he came forward a step, and his bearing was that of the actor who hears his cue.

"No friend, Monseigneur; the honour would be too great. Who am I to call myself the friend of a prophet? Or perhaps it was Hugues who was the prophet; Hugues who is dead and cannot speak for himself."

"Speak no evil of Hugues," said Charles, "he—he——" and the boy's lips quivered, the tears starting afresh under his swollen lids as the memory of his loss came home to him, "he loved me, he died for me, and oh, Ursula! will they take you from me too?"

"No, Charles; surely not. But I think Monsieur Villon has something more to say. Why do you call Hugues a prophet?"

"Because he foretold Guy de Molembrais' death three days before it occurred—or was it four? You should know, Saxe?"

"I only know what he told me," answered Saxe doggedly, but the fresh ruddiness of his face had faded, and he sucked at his lips as if they had grown suddenly dry. He knew Villon and Villon's ways of old, knew his bitter tongue, knew his shrewdness, and feared both.

"Just so," said Villon cheerfully, "and a week before Monsieur d'Argenton came to Amboise he told you no one was safe from the King's sick suspicions, not even if he carried a safe-conduct, and instanced——"

"Villon is right!" cried La Mothe. "Monsieur d'Argenton—Uncle—thank God, Villon is right. Guy de Molembrais was alive a week before we left Valmy. Saxe has lied, lied, lied. Do you see it, Uncle? I knew he lied. Oh, you hound! you hound! And you had a letter from Valmy this afternoon? That accounts——"

"Hush, Monsieur La Mothe, hush." Rising from her chair Ursula de Vesc almost put her hand over La Mothe's mouth in her efforts to silence him. "You have said enough; do not say too much—too much for yourself. Charles, Charles, let us thank God together," and, turning from La Mothe, she caught the boy in her arms, drawing him to her breast in a passion of relief. It was not difficult to see what her chief anxiety had been. "Monsieur d'Argenton, surely you are satisfied now?"

Was he satisfied? By no means. But Commines was spared the embarrassment of an immediate reply. The door, which Villon had just quitted, was thrown hastily open and a servant entered, a sealed envelope in his hand. Ignoring the Dauphin utterly—and it was indicative of the estimate in which the boy was held—he turned to Commines.

"From Valmy, for Monsieur d'Argenton, in great haste. The messenger has left a horse foundered on the road."

"From Valmy? But this is not the King's—there! you can go. See that the messenger is well cared for."

With his thumb under the silk thread which, passing through the seal, secured the envelope, Commines paused and, in spite of all his trained self-control, his face changed. Of all the emotions, fear is, perhaps, the most difficult to conceal because of its widely varied shades of expression. With some it is a tightening of the nostrils, with others a compression of the lips, a change of colour, or a line between the brows. It may even be the laugh of an assumed carelessness, a pretence at jest, but upon one and all it leaves some sign. The seal was not the King's seal, and the handwriting was strange to him.

"Saxe, if you have lied, it will go hard with you, understand that. No, I can hear nothing now; tomorrow, perhaps, or next day. Monsieur Villon, place him in safety for to-night, he must not be allowed to leave the Chateau."

"But, monsieur—monseigneur, I mean—it was the King—"

"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Villon, hustling him through the doorway; "would you make bad worse, or do you want to hang twice over?"

But even when the door was shut behind them Commines stood irresolute. There are times when to be alone is the instinct of nature, and this was one of them. He felt intuitively that some blow threatened, some reverse, a disaster even. Louis' last letter, received that very day, had been harsh in tone, curt to severity, its few words full of a personal complaint which his pride had concealed from Stephen La Mothe. It had been more than a rebuke, it had been a warning, almost a threat. Now upon its heels came this, and he knew that of the three who watched him curiously two were his open enemies. If it was his dismissal, his downfall, there would be no pity. But to be alone was impossible. The situation had to be faced there and then. "With your permission. Monseigneur?" he said, and tore the envelope open.

It was a short letter, as many fateful letters are, and Commines read it in a glance, then a second time. "My God!" they heard him say twice over, drawing in his breath as if an old wound had hurt him suddenly. Half unconsciously his hands crumpled up the paper, then as unconsciously smoothed it out again. The instinct to be alone had possessed him like a prayer, and at times our prayers have a trick of finding an answer in a way we do not expect. The solitariness he desired had come upon him. He forgot he was not alone, and the truest solitude is the isolation of the spirit when the material world slips from us, and in the presence of the eternal a man is set face to face with his own soul. So he stood, the paper shaking in his shaking hands, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he shifted his eyes, and as they fell upon the Dauphin, caught in Ursula de Vesc's arms, the skirt of the white robe half wrapped round him, his head almost upon her breast, he straightened himself with an effort.

"Monseigneur," he began, "the King——" but the words choked in his throat. His coarse, healthy face had gone wan and grey, now it flushed and a rush of tears filled his eyes. But with an impatient jerk of the head he shook them from his cheeks and La Mothe saw him struggling for self-control. "The King is dead," he said hoarsely. "God have mercy on us all; the King is dead—dead."

From the boy his eyes had travelled upwards, following the protecting arm which lay across the slender shoulders, and it was Ursula de Vesc who answered. Charles had caught her hand in both his and held it pressed against his breast. It was clear that he did not understand, but the full meaning of the tragedy of death is not comprehensible in a single moment, nor was the girl's answer much more than an exclamation.

"Monsieur d'Argenton! The King? The King dead?"

"Dead," he said dully, "the greatest King that France has ever known, the greatest mind that was alive in France. In France? In Europe! There was none like him—none. A great King, great in his foresight, great in his wisdom, great in his love for France; a great King, and he is dead. But yesterday, this very day even, he held the peace of nations in the hollow of his hand, now—— Why, how poor a thing is man. Dead! dead! But his monument is a great nation, a new France; and who shall hold France in her pride of place amongst the nations where his dead hand raised her? Dead; the Great King and my friend."



CHAPTER XXV

"IT IS A TRAP"

This time no one broke the silence, and for a little space the quiet was like the reverent stillness of a death-chamber. The awe inseparable from sudden death possessed them. And yet, after the first shock of natural horror, La Mothe was conscious of a great relief. Not till then did he realize how tense the strain had been, how acute the fear. But at the slow dropping of Commines' bitter-hearted words there came a revulsion of feeling, and he was ashamed to find a gladness in such a cause of grief. For the loss to France he cared little. To him Louis had been but a name, the figurehead of state. If not Louis, then another, and France would still be France. But as Commines turned away and, following that other instinct of nature which, in the dumb animal, hides its wounds, covered his face with his arms as he leaned against the wall, the lad's heart went out in sympathy to the man who had lost his friend. And surely over and above his greatness of mind there must have been some deep heart of goodness in the dead man when he moved affection to such a grief. But at last the silence came to an end, and again it was Ursula de Vesc who spoke.

"Monsieur d'Argenton, you will, of course, go to Valmy at once?"

"To Valmy?" Commines brushed his hand across his forehead with a characteristic gesture and paused, hesitating. "Why—I—Monseigneur, have you nothing to say?"

"What is there to say?" answered the boy. "Do you think he loves me any better than he did? Why are you in Amboise at all?"

It was only a bow at a venture, the ill-tempered fling of a petulant boy, but the shaft struck home. Why was he in Amboise? His hope was that the full purpose of his lengthened stay at the castle would never be known, the truth would ruin him with the new King, ruin him utterly. Hastily he searched his memory how far he had committed himself. Not too deeply, he thought, so far as Charles was concerned. Ursula de Vesc was of less consequence, and Saxe could always be made a scapegoat. Saxe had lied, Saxe had deceived him, and, except Stephen La Mothe, no one knew how ready he had been to be deceived. Perhaps Saxe had also deceived the father? Yes, he would take that line, if necessary; Saxe was the evil genius of them all, but the first essential was to placate the boy with a generality. Liars and successful diplomatists are rapid thinkers, and no too obvious a silence followed Charles' blunt question.

"Monseigneur, for ten years I have been your father's trusted and faithful servant——"

"Ursula, I am tired and shall go to bed. Thank you, Monsieur La Mothe, but I do not think you need sleep at my door. To-night I shall be safe. All the same, I would be Dauphin again if it could bring Hugues back. I don't understand what it means to be King; perhaps in time I shall see the difference. Good night, Ursula. I do not know what they were saying to you, but they had better leave you in peace. Good night, Monsieur La Mothe."

"The King is dead; long live the King! and service to the dead is soon forgotten," said Commines bitterly as the door closed. The significant ignoring of his presence had stung him to the quick. It might be said it was only the rudeness of an ill-taught boy, but the boy was King of France, and the suggestive omission was an evil augury to the hopes of his unsatisfied ambition.

"Can you blame him? He is a very loyal boy, and was quite honest when he said he would be the Dauphin again if that would bring Hugues back, and as Dauphin he has been miserably unhappy."

"He is very fortunate in your love, mademoiselle." Commines had never heard Villon's opinion, but it was his own, and he acted upon it promptly. Win the girl and the boy will follow.

"I loved him for himself and for his unhappiness," she answered simply. "But will you not return to Valmy at once? Surely death does not end all service!"

"My duty and service are to the living," replied Commines shortly. "I shall remain in Amboise. The dead take no offence."

"You will forgive me if I speak too plainly, Monsieur d'Argenton, but the King was so jealous and, may I add, so generous, it would vex his ghost to think he was so soon forgotten."

"Mademoiselle, I serve France, and to-night France is in Amboise."

"Is the letter from Coictier, his doctor, Uncle?" Hitherto La Mothe had kept silence. He agreed with Mademoiselle de Vesc, but found himself in a difficulty. In spite of his gratitude and reverence for Commines, in spite even of his profound belief in his shrewder, sounder judgment, he revolted from this callous opportunism which abandoned a dead master for a new service without the apparent compunction of a moment. Surely the grave should first shut out all that was mortal of the old obedience? And yet, because of that unfailing gratitude and profound faith, he could not join with the girl in her open condemnation. But crumpling the letter anew, Commines shook his head as if the question was distasteful.

"No."

"From the King's son-in-law, Monsieur de Beaujeu, then? He would, of course, send you word immediately. Or Leslie? or Saint-Pierre?"

But after each name Commines made a gesture of dissent, pushing the paper into his pocket at the last to end the questioning.

"Not from any of these?" said mademoiselle. "Who, then, has written? Surely the Dauphin has a right to know?"

"Tristan," answered Commines, and, turning, he looked her full in the face.

"Tristan?" she said icily, drawing herself back with a movement which La Mothe recognized by an unhappy experience. "You choose your friends strangely."

"But he is no friend," protested La Mothe, full of scorn and indignation for Commines' sake at the shame of the suggestion. "It would be impossible with such a man. And Monsieur de Commines has told me more than once that Tristan is jealous of his influence with the King, and is his bitterest enemy."

"And yet out of all Valmy it is Tristan—and Tristan only—who is friend enough to send the terrible news to Monsieur d'Argenton? Is that not strange? Monsieur d'Argenton, you are a learned man; is there not some proverb about distrusting the Greeks when they bring presents?"

"Tristan would never dare to spread such a report never, never."

"But Tristan's master might. You don't think so? Forgive me if I am suspicious, but can you wonder, you of all men? In Amboise we have learned to doubt everything, even the friends who are ready to die for us," and, with a sudden impulse, as natural and gracious as it was touching, she held out her hand to La Mothe, a wistful, kindly tenderness, deeper than the emotion of gratitude, moistening her eyes. Very gravely he stooped and kissed it with a "Thank God, mademoiselle!" To say more was unnecessary, for in the three words he said everything. It was the formal wiping out of the day's misunderstanding, the knitting together of life-threads torn apart, and where there is such a knitting the union is firmer, closer, stronger, more indissoluble than before the rent. "Monsieur d'Argenton," she went on, the voice a little tremulous and yet with a clearer ring, "once before, when the King doubted the loyalty of Paris, did he not spread abroad such a rumour that he might test the spirit of the people?"

"Yes, but there was a deep policy in that."

"And is there no deep policy now! Is it for a shallow reason you have spent two weeks in Amboise, or that Jean Saxe has coined his lies with such carefulness of detail? May we hear Tristan's letter?"

For a moment Commines hesitated. He had regained his full self-control, and it was with a growing surprise that La Mothe heard him debate the situation with Ursula de Vesc as with an equal. But not only was he impressed in spite of his prejudice against her, but he was too shrewd a politician to put aside any suggestion which commended itself to his reason just because he despised its source. And the girl was right. If there had been a deep policy in setting afloat the Paris rumour, there was a yet deeper policy now, a policy more subtle, darker, and pregnant with tragedy. Belief in the King's death might well loosen the tongues of those who had plotted against him, and their unguarded triumph furnish the very confirmation which had been vainly sought in Amboise these ten days. While he hesitated Ursula de Vesc urged her point afresh.

"Monsieur d'Argenton, in the Dauphin's name I might claim to see the letter, I might even demand and compel it as a right; but there will be no need for that?"

"No need at all," he answered. "This is the letter. As you see, it is very short:

"'MONSIEUR,—A great misfortune has overtaken us, the greatest possible. The King is dead. It is being kept secret, but I send you the warning that you may make yourself secure in Amboise. Note carefully how the Dauphin takes it. I commend you to the keeping of God.—TRISTAN.'

You see it is explicit."

"And Saxe was explicit, but he lied." She was too much of a woman to spare him the thrust, but it was the only revenge she took, and having taken it, she sat silent, her brows knit, her fingers playing unconsciously with Charlemagne's soft ears. The dog's head was on her lap, motionless, the gentle brown eyes fixed upon her face. Charlot lay asleep at her feet, breathing little heavy breaths of contentment, as if enough of his brain was awake to enjoy the sleep of the remainder.

"Yes," she said slowly, "I agree that the King's Provost-Marshal is explicit, but I do not read his letter as you do. Perhaps it is because Amboise has made me so suspicious. It is a sorrowful thing to say, but we have been taught that safety lies in distrust of Valmy. It is horrible, but it is not our fault, and I distrust now. Tristan is your enemy and ours. The King, the great King, is not above setting a trap. I think I see a double snare; a snare to catch the Dauphin, to catch all who are his friends in Amboise, and a snare to catch the great King's minister himself. Perhaps it is foolish, I know it is presumptuous, but let me read the letter my own way; you can show me afterwards where I am wrong. It is clever, but it is the cleverness of the man who thinks only of his own interests, who makes no allowance for love, loyalty, or single-hearted duty, and judges others by himself. Is that your great King, Monsieur d'Argenton?" and Commines, answering nothing, recognized the life-likeness of the portrait.

"But no!" she went on, "your great King is dead, the letter says so, and this is your friend Tristan who sends you the warning that you may make yourself secure in Amboise! What does that mean? You know that better than I, but I suppose it means that, first in the field, you may win the Dauphin's confidence and govern France through the boy. That is a great gift from an enemy, Monsieur d'Argenton, and what would the King say if he were alive? But the King is dead! Then why are you to note carefully how the Dauphin takes the news? For whose benefit are you to note it? For your own? But you are to make yourself secure in Amboise! For Tristan's? But how does it touch Tristan? For the King, who is dead? That is absurd. For the King, who is alive? for the King, who dictates the letter that he may lay hold of some chance word and torture it into God knows what vile use against the boy? Bear witness, gentlemen, both of you, there was no such word. And what is the ending of the letter? He commends you to the keeping of God! Tristan, the hangman, commends Monsieur d'Argenton to the keeping of God. There will be much need for His keeping if you make yourself secure in Amboise while the King lives. Do you not smell the King's unctuous, perverted religiosity in that sentence, Monsieur d'Argenton? It is a snare, a snare for us all, and if I were you I would ride to Valmy this very hour, though I foundered a dozen horses on the road. Monsieur La Mothe, am I not right?"

"Entirely right," said La Mothe heartily. He might have gone further and, following the precedent set by Adam in Eden, have said, "Eternally right!" for what lover ever thought his mistress in the wrong? But this time there was more than a lover's agreement. "Uncle, surely you see that Mademoiselle de Vesc is right, right every way? If that scoundrel has lied, then there is a trap set, but if it is the truth, surely your place is at Valmy?"

"Why?" asked Commines, but as he spoke he read the letter afresh, weighing each sentence separately. "Why not at Amboise?"



CHAPTER XXVI

COMMINES TAKES ADVICE

Respect kept La Mothe silent. How could he say bluntly, 'You owe everything you possess in the world to the man who is dead—position, title, office, wealth. Are these forgotten?' In his embarrassment he glanced at Ursula de Vesc. Owing Commines neither respect nor gratitude, she had no such scruple.

"Death is always terrible," she said softly, "or we make it terrible by our own terrors, but there will be a new terror added if love and the loyalty of gratitude die with the life. Is eaten bread so soon forgotten, Monsieur d'Argenton?"

Almost abstractedly Commines looked up from the paper in his hand. If he heard her, he gave no sign of having heard; certainly he showed no resentment at the implied censure. His mind was busy balancing prospects and possibilities. If Charles were king, Ursula de Vesc would be a power behind the throne. If, as she said, Louis—and not for the first time—played one of his grim jests full of a sinister possibility, to remain at Amboise would be fatal both to himself and to the boy. The King might say the Dauphin grasped at the crown while the father lived, and Philip de Commines abetted him. After all, Valmy was safest. Not many days before, Louis had told him with brutal frankness that the hand which pulled him from the gutter could fling him back again. Yes, Valmy was safest. But what account was he to give of his mission? The letter, whether false in its news or true, was a sufficient reason for his return. It was most natural, human, and loving that the faithful servant should stand by the bier of his dead master. It would even be a point in his favour if the King lived. No doubt Tristan had said, 'Test him and he will go over to the Dauphin.' Well, he would give Tristan the lie and prove that Louis came first, living or dead. Yes, Valmy was safest.

But his mission? For the time it had failed. Saxe, as Stephen had said, had proved too much. He must make Saxe the scapegoat. The obvious lie damned him. It was crass stupidity to put into Hugues' mouth a lie which carried its own disproof with it. To force an accusation based upon the remainder of the story would be unpolitic. His best course would be to relieve the King of all his fears at Amboise. There was no plot, the Dauphin was loyal and obedient: not affectionate, that would be proving too much like the fool Saxe, and Louis would never believe it. Then there was the King's letter to Saxe. It must not be forgotten. That shrewd rascal, Villon, was right when he said some one had sounded Saxe, only the some one was not Hugues the valet. The letter must be ignored, or, better still, it might even help to make his—Commines'—position more secure than ever. It was Louis' habit to disavow his failures. He would, of course, repudiate Saxe and disavow the mission to Amboise, and because of the disavowal he would, openly at least, welcome the Dauphin's loyalty. That was Louis' way. Yes, Valmy was safest.

"I must leave Amboise at once," he said at last, and speaking as if the intention had always been in his mind. "If this misfortune has overtaken us all, which God forbid, we must meet it with courage and resignation. May He who alone is able comfort the bereaved son of so good and so great a father. My hope and prayer, mademoiselle, is that you are right and the King is making trial of our love and loyalty. In either case my place is at Valmy. La Mothe, order a horse to be saddled without delay."

"There is one ready in Saxe's stable," answered La Mothe. Then, lest he should be asked the unpleasant question how he came by that knowledge and for what purpose the horse was in readiness, he added hastily, "What shall we do with Saxe?"

"Keep Saxe safe until you hear from Valmy; let no one but Villon or yourself have speech with him. Such a liar would calumniate the King himself. Now, Stephen, the horses in ten minutes."

"Horses?" said La Mothe blankly. Was he also to leave Amboise now that a new dawn was breaking?

"Yes, tell two of my men to be ready. I do not trust Tristan, and will take no risks. An accident might happen to a lonely man on an all-night's ride."

"And yet," said the girl as La Mothe left the room, "you were ready to trust Tristan ten minutes ago?"

"But you have opened my eyes. Why? That is the one thing I cannot understand. We have always been opposed, always at enmity, and never more bitterly than to-night. Mademoiselle de Vesc, why did you not take your revenge and let me ruin myself?"

"I might give you a woman's reason and say, Because!" she answered, speaking more lightly than she had yet spoken; then as she paused a moment the pale face flushed, and the beginnings of a smile played about the mouth, only to die away in a tender gravity. "And yet, to tell the truth, it was a woman's reason: it was because there was once a friendless, helpless boy, and Philip de Commines—you were neither Argenton nor Talmont then, monsieur—opened his heart to him."

"But, mademoiselle, to be honest, that was for a woman's sake."

"And," she answered, the flush deepening and the gentle tenderness of mouth and eyes growing yet more tender, "to be honest, this is for a man's sake."

Again there was silence, and in the quiet the two who had been enemies, and might be again for the same cause, drew into a closer, better comprehension upon a common ground. At heart they were akin—the politic unscrupulous opportunist vowed to the compulsion of his ambitions, and the girl who through all her threat of danger had given no thought to herself. For the sake of the man; for the sake of the woman: they are the twin cogwheels, working the one into the other, which keep this great machine of life, this sordid material world, upon a sure, if slow, ascent from the baser to the nobler, from the kingdoms of this world to the glory of the Kingdom which is to come.

"A good lad," said Commines at last, speaking as a man speaks who is moved in his depths. "Simple in his faith, simple in his reverence for the best as he understands it, simple in his simpleness of heart: a lad so loyal that he can see no disloyalty in others. God bless him for a good lad. He came here a boy, but Amboise has made a man of him—Amboise and you together." It was Francois Villon's second birth over again, but in different words. "Mademoiselle, it will be my charge to commend him to the King."

"For God's sake, no!" she burst out. "Leave him the man he is, Monsieur d'Argenton, leave him his simplicity of faith. Commend him to the King? I would rather he ploughed the fields for bread than served your King. Here he is. Good-bye, Monsieur d'Argenton, may you find all well at Valmy; good night, Monsieur La Mothe, we shall meet again in the morning, or is it already the new day?" and with a smiling curtsy to each she was gone. To Stephen La Mothe it seemed a cold good night after all that had come and gone between them that day, the misunderstood question in her work-room, the shadow of death in the Burnt Mill, and, above all, their nearness as he had stood behind her chair. But she had her purpose. She might spare Philip de Commines, she might even forgive him, but she would not touch his hand in friendship.

In silence Commines returned to his room, La Mothe following; in silence made himself ready for the road; in silence they both went together to the great gate and passed without. Perhaps it was that each felt the need of quiet to adjust his thoughts. But once the heavy door, bolted and studded with iron, had clanged behind them, and the stars were clear overhead, Commines linked his arm with La Mothe's, drawing him close with the affectionate equality and confidence of the old days when they were father and son, brother and brother, friend and friend in one. Let their union in blood be what it may, it is the most perfect relationship man and man can know, and differs from the sweeter, more tender relationship of man and woman in that nothing is sought, nothing granted.

"Stephen, lad, we have been at odds, you and I, and it has hurt us both, but that's over. I think we were both to blame. Perhaps I have grown old, and so forgot that youth must have its day; perhaps you could not understand my duty to the King, or how, when a man is ridden by a dominant purpose, he must go straight forward and make or break a way to the end. And yet you were doing something of the same yourself. With you it was love in duty; with me, duty in love. For, Stephen, make no mistake. Notwithstanding what it shames me to remember, I love and reverence the King as the truest friend France has. May God spare him to France until the boy has grown to be a man. Woe to thee, O land, when thy King is a child. Henceforward I think the Dauphin has nothing to fear; all that man can do to draw father to son and son to father I will do. Stephen, your mission here is ended."

But in the darkness La Mothe shook his head; this was the real Philip de Commines, the Commines he had known and loved. The crust of selfishness which overlies the heart of every man given overmuch to one purpose, even the most honourable, had broken up, and the generous warmth of the kindly nature within asserted itself. To such an one La Mothe could speak as he could not speak to the shrewd politician, or the leader of men.

"Not ended yet, Uncle. With you I pray the King still lives, and that is more than I could honestly have said in the Hercules room yonder with Saxe spinning his lies. Tell him that within twelve hours I shall have fulfilled to the very letter the orders he gave me. Watch him as you tell him, you who are so shrewd a judge of men, and I think you will say that to draw the father to the son will not be difficult."

"You believe that, Stephen?"

"I know it, Uncle; but here are the horses." With no more words La Mothe assisted Commines to mount, standing by his knee as he settled himself in the saddle. Then Commines stooped and the two men clasped hands.

"God keep you, Stephen."

"And you, too, and may all be well at Valmy," answered La Mothe earnestly, and added impulsively, "Uncle, have you nothing to say to me?"

"Only this, Stephen, thank God for a good woman," and with a last pressure of the hand Commines rode on into the darkness, his two guards a length behind him.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE

For once in his career Phillip de Commines, ambassador and diplomatist, was well pleased to have failed, or rather, paradoxically, he told himself that failure was his true success. The King—he had come to the conclusion that Louis had played one of those grim jests which were not all a jest and at times had tragic consequences—the King, no doubt, had been deceived, possibly by Saxe, and to have Saxe proved a liar beyond question could not but be a relief. So all was well; the King's fears could be set at rest, and he himself was freed from an odious duty. Against his expectation he had quitted Amboise with clean hands.

Nor even as regards the Dauphin, and the future the Dauphin represented, was there much to regret. There was even, he believed, much to hope. Ursula de Vesc controlled the boy, Stephen La Mothe would influence the girl, and Stephen owed him everything. These were all so many links in a chain, and the chain bound him not only to safety but to continuance in his present offices, perhaps even to advancement. Even though the King had died there was no need to remain in Amboise to secure himself; La Mothe would do that for him. But the King was living, the King would welcome his failure, would be touched by his prompt return to Valmy, and the world was a very good world for those who knew how to use its hazards and chances rightly.

The stern justice of the King had swept the highways clear of violence. According to a grim jest of Villon's, thieves and thievery were alike in suspense from Burgundy to the sea. Except the ruts of the road, deep in places as the axles of a cart, or the turbid waters of the Loire, treacherous in the darkness and swollen by heavy rains in the upper reaches, travelling was as safe by night as by day, and Commines met with no delays but those at all times inseparable from such a journey. Tristan's forethought, as it proved, had provided no accident. This time there was no halt at the Chateau-Renaud. Through the little straggling village they rode at a hand-gallop, and except to bait or breathe the horses on a hill-crest, no rein was drawn until the dawn had slipped from grey to glory and a new day lay broad upon the fields. When that hour broke, they had made such progress that they had reached the place whence Commines had shown La Mothe the three good reasons why his men would keep their counsel.

"Dismount and ease the saddles," he said, slipping a foot from the stirrup as he spoke, "the gates will not be opened for two or three hours at least. Lead the horses on slowly, I will follow you."

But he was in no haste. In the small hours of the morning the currents of enthusiasm, like those of life, run slow. It is then that the spirit of a man is at its weakest. Or perhaps it was the sight of Valmy that cooled his optimism. There it lay, grey and forbidding even with the yellow sunlight of dawn full upon it, and there, stark and clear, an offence against the sweetness of the new day, were the three royal gibbets. Their sinister hint was emphatic. The justice of the King was without mercy, and sombrely he asked himself, Was he so sure that in his failure he had no need of forgiveness? Was it not rather true that with Louis failure had always need of forgiveness and was never forgiven? He was not so certain, now that his blood was sluggish in the vapoury chill of dawn, but that he had been hasty in quitting Amboise at all; and yet, what if Tristan, playing on the jealous suspicions of the King, had set a trap? And even as he speculated with dull eyes whether there was a trap or no, whether the King lived at all, and what course was the most politic to follow, a stir of life woke at Valmy: a small troop passed out from the grey arch facing the river and took the Tours road. The distance was too great to distinguish who comprised it. But Valmy was awake, and with Valmy awake the sooner he faced his doubts the better—doubts grow by nursing, and given time enough their weight will kill.

Walking briskly forward he mounted and urged his tired horse to its best speed. That it should reach Valmy in its last extremity, foam-flecked and caked with sweat, would appeal to the King's sick suspicions. It was a petty trick, mean and contemptible, but had the King not played a still more mean and contemptible trick on him? Commines knew with whom he had to deal; it was the vulgar cunning his master had taught him, and any apparent absence of anxious haste would be a point lost in the game: so their spurs were red, and their beasts utterly blown, utterly weary from their last climb up the river's bank when they drew rein before the outer guard-house. The Tours troop was already out of sight.

Lessaix himself was on duty, and as he came forward with outstretched hand Commines required no second glance to tell himself that Ursula de Vesc had construed Tristan's letter aright. Not so frankly would he have been greeted if Valmy's master lay dead in Valmy.

"The King expects you," he said, "and by your horses' looks you have lost no time on the road." As he spoke he ran his finger-tips up the hot neck, leaving tracks of roughened, sweaty hair behind the pressure.

"When did you leave Amboise?"

"The King expects me? How can that be?"

Then as Lessaix, scenting a mystery, looked up curiously Commines made haste to cover his slip, "Or rather, how did you know I was coming?"

"Tristan told me as he rode out half an hour ago. He said you were on the way and might arrive any moment. You are to go to the King at once."

"So Tristan left half an hour ago?"

Try as he would Commines could not quite control his voice. He owed more to Mademoiselle de Vesc than he had supposed. The trap had, as it were, snapped before his face and he had escaped by a hair-breadth. Tristan's cunning was as deep as simplicity. His forethought must have run somewhat thus. Lessaix knows that Monsieur de Commines is expected any moment and is to go at once to the King, who waits for him; Monsieur de Commines does not appear, but remains paying his court to the Dauphin at Amboise. The inference would be clear to all men, and Monsieur de Commines would be ruined outright and utterly discredited. Yes, Ursula de Vesc had saved him from downfall, or worse.

Lessaix, watchful as every man was who called Louis master, caught the change of tone and again looked up, but this time with something more than curiosity—an anxious wariness, a fear lest some current of events he failed to discover might catch him in its flood and drag him down with its undertow unawares.

"Monsieur de Commines," he said earnestly, laying a hand on Commines' bridle-rein as they passed at a foot's pace under the archway, "we have always been friends, always good comrades, is there—" he hesitated, uncertain how far he dared commit himself with his good friend and comrade, "is there anything wrong—astray—here, or at Amboise?"

"The Dauphin is well, and it is you who should have the news of Valmy. I know nothing but that the King sent for me in haste. Some question of new taxation, perhaps; or it may be that England threatens to break the peace. What did Tristan say?"