e door slammed
unceremoniously in Father Mariana's face. But the church historian was
not in the least put out. He laid his finger slowly to the side of his
nose and smiled stilly.

He descended the stairs to the entresol, and there from a window which
overhung the court he looked forth in time to see the Duke of Guise
stooping to pick up something white from the ground.

He saw him kiss it and thrust it into the breast of his black velvet
doublet.

And the worthy Jesuit chuckled softly, saying to himself, "There are
things in this world which are cheap even at the loss of my best
broidered kerchief!"

* * * * *

As Mariana had foretold, the Duke of Guise and his brother the young De
Bar called upon the Marquis Osorio the following day. That morning the
Duke had made the life of his valet a burden to him while dressing, and
he now appeared gorgeous in a suit of dark blue velvet trimmed with gold
lace. A cape of silk was over one arm, and he carried Mariana's
embroidered kerchief carefully in his hand.

In his most stately fashion the Marquis Osorio received the head of the
League. He presented his credentials as to a reigning monarch, and began
to talk of revolutions of Holy Church, concerning the culpable laxness
of the Pope in his own interests, and the fidelity of the King of Spain
to his ideals and to his allies. It was evident, however, that Guise
paid but scant heed. His ears were elsewhere. As for De Bar, he stared
insolently about him, now at the ambassador, now at the tapestry on the
walls, and again and most often out at the window. But his brother
listened, almost without disguise, to a slight noise, which came
occasionally into the room from without. There was, for instance, the
rustling of a woman's silken robe in the passage. Voices also, that
sounded faint, pleading, expostulatory, cut into the even rise and fall
of Castilian diplomacy.

"For these reasons my royal master judged it expedient to send me as his
representative, charged with----"

Guise twisted impatiently this way and that in his black oaken chair, in
vain efforts to catch what was going on outside. De Bar observed his
brother's uneasiness, and as the Lorraine princes went at that time in
constant fear of assassination, it did not cost him two thoughts, even
in the house of the Spanish ambassador, to rise and throw the door wide
open.

Then through the wide Romanesque arch of the audience chamber Va