he famous dyke was to pass which, eighteen months later, shut up the
port of the besieged city. As he was in the deepest of his strategic
meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort returned.

"Well?" said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a promptitude which
proved the degree of importance he attached to the commission with which
he had charged the count.

"Well," said the latter, "a young woman of about twenty-six or
twenty-eight years of age, and a man of from thirty-five to forty, have
indeed lodged at the two houses pointed out by your Eminence; but the
woman left last night, and the man this morning."

"It was they!" cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; "and now it is
too late to have them pursued. The duchess is at Tours, and the duke at
Boulogne. It is in London they must be found."

"What are your Eminence's orders?"

"Not a word of what has passed. Let the queen remain in perfect
security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret. Let her believe
that we are in search of some conspiracy or other. Send me the keeper of
the seals, Seguier."

"And that man, what has your Eminence done with him?"

"What man?" asked the cardinal.

"That Bonacieux."

"I have done with him all that could be done. I have made him a spy upon
his wife."

The Comte de Rochefort bowed like a man who acknowledges the superiority
of the master as great, and retired.

Left alone, the cardinal seated himself again and wrote a letter, which
he secured with his special seal. Then he rang. The officer entered for
the fourth time.

"Tell Vitray to come to me," said he, "and tell him to get ready for a
journey."

An instant after, the man he asked for was before him, booted and
spurred.

"Vitray," said he, "you will go with all speed to London. You must not
stop an instant on the way. You will deliver this letter to Milady. Here
is an order for two hundred pistoles; call upon my treasurer and get the
money. You shall have as much again if you are back within six days, and
have executed your commission well."

The messenger, without replying a single word, bowed, took the letter,
with the order for the two hundred pistoles, and retired.

Here is what the letter contained:

MILADY, Be at the first ball at which the Duke of Buckingham shall be
present. He will wear on his doublet twelve diamond studs; get as near
to him as you can, and cut off two.

As soon as these studs shall be in your possession, inform me.