kle scent of the
sweet alison which she had carried idly away in her hand.

"If the Queen-Mother be dead," said the Professor, "that is one more
stone out of the path of the Bearnais. The Valois loves a strong man to
lean upon. For that reason he clings to D'Epernon, but some day he will
find out that Epernon is only a man of cardboard. There is but one in
France--or, at least, one with the gift of drawing other strong men
about him."

"The Bearnais?" queried Claire, playing with the sweet alison; "I wonder
where he has his camp now?"

She asked the question in a carelessly meditative way, and quite
evidently without any reference to the fact that a certain John d'Albret
(once called in jest the Abbe John) was the youngest full captain in
that enthusiastic, though ill-paid array. But the Professor did not hear
her question. His mind was set on great matters of policy, while Claire
wondered whether the Abbe John looked handsome in his accoutrements of
captain. Then she thought of the enemy trying to kill him, and it seemed
bitterly wicked. That John d'Albret was at the same time earnestly
endeavouring to kill as many as possible of the enemy did not seem to
matter nearly so much.

"Yes," said the Professor, "Henry of Valois has nothing else for it. The
Leaguers are worse than ever, buzzing like a cloud of hornets about his
head. They hold Paris and half the cities of France. He must go to the
King of Navarre, and that humbly withal!"

"It will be well for him then," said Claire, "if our Jean-aux-Choux has
no more visions, with 'Remember Saint Bartholomew' for an over-word!"

"Ah," said the Professor, "make no mistake. A man may be brave and
politic as well. 'I am excellent at taking advice, when it is to my own
liking,' said the Bearnais, and he will teach Master Jean to see visions
also to his liking!"

At which Claire laughed merrily.

"I am with him there!" she cried; "so as you hope for influence with me,
good sir, advise me in the line of my desires. But, ah! yonder is your
mother."

And clapping her hands, she picked up her skirts and ran as hard as she
could up the path towards a trellised white house with a wide balcony,
over which the vines clambered in summer. It was the house of La Masane,
which looks down upon Collioure.

Madame Amelie, or, more properly, the Senora, was a little,
quick-moving, crisp-talking woman, with an eye that snapped, and a
wealth of speech which left her son, the Professor