ut only a few people
were stirring in the streets, and I pursued my way without hindrance,
musing over the Cardinal's pleasantries and Roland Belloc's information.

"Faith," I muttered to myself, "Mazarin has a strange method of showing
his favour."

CHAPTER VI.

Was I Mistaken?

At the corner of the narrow street opposite the astrologer's house I
stopped suddenly, and hid in the shelter of a doorway. Two men,
wearing cloaks so arranged that their faces could not be seen, stood
before the door, waiting for admission. One, a short man, was a
stranger to me, but at the other I looked my hardest.

It is not an easy matter to distinguish a person whose features are
hidden, but if height, build, and general carriage counted for
anything, then the tall man was no other than my cousin Henri.
Presently, after a whispered conversation with some one inside, they
entered the house, and the door was shut.

Now, although Mazarin kept his own counsel, I had learned that the
house of the good Martin was a kind of spider's web, and that the silly
flies entangled in its meshes were for the most part members of the
Fronde. The house was visited by persons of both sexes and of all
ranks, from the members of the Royal family downwards. They went there
for all sorts of purposes. Some required rare medicines, others charms
to ward off or drive away disease; one desired to learn the date of his
death, another the success or failure of his plans, which the
astrologer was supposed to tell by the stars or by means of crystal
globes.

And the learned Martin, while plying his strange trade, discovered all
their secrets, their hopes and fears, their ambitions, their loves and
hates; and in due time the information reached that famous room in the
Palais Royal, where the wily Italian sat, spinning the fate of men and
nations alike.

It was no rare event therefore for strangers to be observed at the
astrologer's house, and in an ordinary way I should have taken no
further notice of the incident. But if one of the visitors was really
my cousin, there must be something strange happening. He had no faith
in the stars, and would certainly not bother his head about the future
as depicted in glass balls.

Besides--and this made the mystery deeper--he must know that Martin was
the Cardinal's friend, or rather dependant; and it seemed strange that
so clever a man as my cousin should trust himself in an enemy's power.
My head began to