the excesses of the party.

Marie Portail looked for the first time at the speaker. He sat on the
edge of the chest, carelessly swinging one knee over the other; a man of
middle height, neither tall nor short, with well-bronzed cheeks, a
forehead broad and white, and an aquiline nose. He wore a beard and
moustaches, and his chin jutted out. His eyes were keen, but
good-humoured. Though spare he was sinewy; and an iron-hilted sword
propped against his thigh seemed made for use rather than show. The
upper part of his dress was of brown cloth, the lower of leather. A
weather-stained cloak, which he had taken off, lay on the chest beside
him.

"You are a man!" cried Marie, her eyes leaving him again. "But as for
these----"

"Stay, mistress!" the clerk broke in. "Your brother does but collect
himself. If the Duke of Mayenne returns to-morrow, as our friend here
says is likely--and I have heard the same myself--he will keep his men
in better order. That is true. And we might risk it if the watch would
leave us a clear street."

Felix nodded sullenly. "Shut the door," he said to his sister, the deep
gloom on his countenance in sharp contrast with the excitement she
betrayed. "There is no need to let the neighbours see us."

This time she obeyed him. Susanne too crept from her skirts, and threw
herself on her knees, hiding her face on a chair. "Ay," said Marie,
looking down at her with the first expression of tenderness the stranger
had noted in her. "Let her weep. Let children weep. But let men work."

"We want a ladder," the clerk said, in a low voice. "And the longest we
have is full three feet short."

"That is just half a man," remarked he who sat on the chest.

"What mean you?" Felix asked wonderingly.

"What I said."

"But there is nothing on which we can rest the ladder," the clerk urged.

"Then that is a whole man," quoth the stranger, curtly. "Perhaps two. I
told you you would have need of me." He looked from one to the other
with a smile--a careless, reckless, self-contented smile.

"You are a soldier," said Marie. And abruptly she fixed her eyes upon
him.

"At times," he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"For which side?"

He shook his head. "For my own," he answered naively.

"A soldier of fortune?"

"At your service, mistress; now and ever."

The clerk struck in with impatience. "If we are to do this," he said,
"we had better set about it. I will fetch the ladder."

He went out, and the