6

Why did you leave
Do you understand,

'Why did you leave me?' she cried. me, if you could not come back at once? sir,' she continued with passion, that it was at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this Court, and that I look to you for protection?'

'And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guardians for me? Should I have come or thought of coming to this wedding, but for your promise, and Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself almost your wife, sir,' she continued warmly, ‘and secure of your protection, should I have come within a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, had I my will, none of our people should have come.'

Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful,' he answered, smiling, and striving to give the dispute a playful turn. You have seen more in a week than you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Mademoiselle.'

And I choke!' she retorted; I choke! Do you not see how they look at us, at us Huguenots, in the street? How they, who live here, point at us and curse us? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl at our heels, and the babes cross themselves when we go by? Can you see the Place des Gastines and not think what stood there? Can you pass the Grève at night and not fill the air above the river with screams and wailings and horrible cries the cries of our people murdered on that spot?' She paused for breath, recovered herself a little, and in a lower tone, For me,' she said, 'I think of Philippine de Luns by day and by night! The eaves are a threat to me; the tiles would fall on us had they their will; the houses nod to-to'

'To what, Mademoiselle?' he asked, shrugging his shoulders and assuming a tone of cynicism.

To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!'

'And all this because I left you for a moment?'

For an hour-or well-nigh an hour,' she answered more soberly.

'But if I could not help it?'

'You should have thought of that-before you brought me to Paris, Monsieur. In these troublous times.'

He coloured warmly. You are unjust, Mademoiselle,' he said. 'There are things you forget; in a Court one is not always master of oneself.'

I know it,' she answered drily, thinking of that through which she had gone.

But you do not know what happened!' he returned with impatience. 'You do not understand that I am not to blame. Madame d'Yverne, when I reached the Princess Dowager's closet, had left to go to the Queen of Navarre. I hurried after her, and found a score of gentlemen in the King of Navarre's chamber. They were holding a council, and they begged, nay, they compelled me to remain.'

'And it was that which detained you so long?'

'To be sure, Mademoiselle.'

'And not-Madame St. Lo?'

M. de Tignonville's face turned scarlet. The thrust in tierce was unexpected. This then was the key to Mademoiselle's spirt of temper. I do not understand you,' he stammered.

How long were you in the King of Navarre's chamber, and how long with Madame St. Lo?' she asked with fine irony. 'Or no, I will not tempt you,' she went on quickly, seeing him hesitate. 'I heard you talking to Madame St. Lo in the gallery while I sat within. And I know how long you were with her.'

'I met Madame as I returned,' he stammered, his face still hot, and I asked her where you were. I did not know, Mademoiselle, that I was not to speak to ladies of my acquaintance.'

'I was alone, and I was waiting.'

'I could not know that-for certain,' he answered, making the best of it. You were not where I left you. I thought, I confess that you had gone. That you had gone home.'

6

Was

'With whom? With whom?' she repeated pitilessly. it likely? With whom was I to go? And yet it is true, I might have gone home had I pleased-with M. de Tavannes! Yes,' she continued, in a tone of keen reproach and with the blood mounting to her forehead, it is to that, Monsieur, you expose me! To be pursued, molested, harassed by a man whose look terrifies me, and whose touch I-I hate! To be addressed wherever I go by a man whose every word proves that he thinks me game for the hunter, and you a thing he may neglect. You are a man and you do not know, you cannot know what I suffer! What I have suffered this week past whenever you have left my side!"

Tignonville looked gloomy. What has he said to you?' he asked, between his teeth.

Nothing I can tell you,' she answered with a shudder. was he who took me into the chamber.'

Why did you go?'

'It

Wait until he bids you do something,' she answered. 'His manner, his smile, his tone, all frighten me. And to-night, in all these there was a something worse, a hundred times worse than when I saw him last-on Thursday! He seemed to-to gloat on me,' the girl stammered, with a flush of shame, as if I were his! Oh, Monsieur, I wish we had never left our Saintonge! Shall we ever see Vrillac again, and the fishers' huts about the port, and the sea beating blue against the long brown causeway?'

He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at this, seeing the tears gather in her eyes, he forced a laugh. Why, you are as bad as M. de Rosny and the Vidame!' he said. And they are as full of fears as an egg is of meat! Since the Admiral was wounded by that scoundrel on Friday, they think all Paris is in a league against us.'

And why not?' she asked, her cheek grown pale, her eyes reading his eyes.

'Why not? Why, because it is a monstrous thing even to think of!' Tignonville answered, with the confidence of one who did not use the argument for the first time. Could they insult the King more deeply than by such a suspicion? A Borgia may kill his guests, but it was never a practice of the Kings of France! Pardieu, I have no patience with them! They may lodge where they please, across the river, or without the walls if they choose, the Rue de l'Arbre Sec is good enough for me, and the King's name sufficient surety!'

'I know you are not apt to be fearful,' she answered, smiling; and she looked at him with a woman's pride in her lover. ‘All the same, you will not desert me again, sir, will you?'

He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked into her eyes; then melting to her, stammering, blundering, he named Madame St. Lo. She stopped him.

There is no need,' she said, answering his look with kind eyes, and refusing to hear his protestations. In a fortnight will you not be my husband? How should I distrust you? It was only that while she talked, I waited-I waited; and-and that Madame St. Lo is Count Hannibal's cousin. For a moment I was mad

enough to fancy that she held you on purpose. You do not think it was so?'

She!' he cried sharply; and winced, as if the thought hurt him. Absurd! The truth is, Mademoiselle,' he continued with a little heat,' you are like so many of our people! You think a Catholic capable of the worst.'

'We have long thought so at Vrillac,' she answered gravely. 'That's over now, if people would only understand. This wedding has put an end to all that. But I'm harking back,' he continued awkwardly; and he stopped. Instead, let me take you home.'

'If you please. Carlat and the servants should be below."

He took her left hand in his right after the wont of the day, and with his other hand touching his sword-hilt, he led her down the staircase. In the great hall, and without in the courtyard of the palace, a mob of armed servants, of lacqueys, and footboys bearing torches, and of valets carrying their masters' cloaks and galoshes, loitered to and fro. Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant, or a trifle less occupied with his own importance, he might have noted more than one face which looked darkly on him; he might have caught more than one overt sneer at his expense. But in the business of summoning Carlat-Mademoiselle de Vrillac's steward and major-domo-he lost the contemptuous' 'Christaudins!' that hissed from a footboy's lips, and the 'Southern dogs!' that died in the moustachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother. Having found the steward, he aided him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, a new acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, he made a way for her through the crowd. A moment, and the three, followed by half a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches, detached themselves from the throng, and crossing the courtyard, with its rows of lighted windows, passed out by the gate between the Tennis Courts, and so into the Rue des Fosses de St. Germain. .

Before them, against a sky in which the last faint glow of evening still contended with the stars, the spire and pointed arches of the church of St. Germain rose darkly graceful. It was something after nine; the heat of the August day brooded over the crowded city, and dulled the faint distant ring of arms and armour that yet would make itself heard above the hush; a hush that was not silence so much as a subdued hum. As Mademoiselle passed

the closed house beside the Cloister of St. Germain where only the day before Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots, had been shot, she pressed her escort's hand, and involuntarily drew nearer to him. But he laughed at her.

'It was a private blow,' he said, answering her unspoken thought. 'It is like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what the King's will is, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. It will not befall again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards '-they were passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which, abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings-whom the King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins.'

6

'Cosseins?' she repeated. But I thought Cosseins-' 'Was not wont to love us!' Tignonville answered with a confident chuckle. 'He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills, Mademoiselle. He was has altered all.'

not, but he does. This marriage

'I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!' she murmured. She felt impelled to say it.

'Not it!' he answered confidently.

'Why should it ?'

They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, at the corner of the Rue St. Honoré opposite the Croix du Tiroir; which rose shadowy in the middle of the four ways. He hammered on the door.

'But,' she said softly, looking in his face, 'the change is sudden, is it not? The King was not wont to be so good to us!"

'The King was not King until now,' he answered warmly. That is what I am trying to persuade our people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may sleep without fear; and early in the morning I will be with you. Carlat, have a care of your mistress until morning, and let Madame lie in her chamber. She is nervous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God keep you, and pleasant dreams!'

He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed it; and the door being open he would have turned away. But she lingered as if unwilling to enter. 'There is do you hear it—a stir in that quarter?' she said, pointing across the Rue St. Honoré. What lies there?'

'Northward? The markets,' he answered. 'Tis nothing. They say, you know, that Paris never sleeps. Good-night, sweet, and a fair awakening!'