smiled, the lines of his
mouth hardened suddenly. "Why not to the Rue des Lombards?"

"I know no reason why you should not be going there," the clerk replied
boldly. "It was only that the street is near; and a friend of my late
master's lives in it."

"His name?"

The clerk started; the question was put so abruptly, and in a tone so
imperious, it struck him as it were a blow. "Nicholas Toussaint," he
answered involuntarily.

"Ay?" replied the other, raising his hand to his chin and glancing at
Adrian with a look that for all the world reminded him of an old print
of the eleventh Louis, which hung in a room at the Hotel de Ville--so
keen and astute was it. "Your master, young man, was of the moderate
party--a Politique?"

"He was."

"A good man and a Catholic? one who loved France? A Leaguer only in
name?" the other continued with vividness.

"Yes, that is so."

"But his son? He is a Leaguer out and out--one who would rise to fortune
on the flood tide of the mob? A Sorbonnist? The priests have got hold of
him? He would do to others as they have done to his father? A friend of
Le Clerc and Boucher? That is all so, is it not?"

Adrian nodded reluctantly. This strange man confounded and yet
fascinated him: this man so reckless and gay one moment, so wary the
next; exchanging in an instant the hail of a boon companion for the tone
of a noble.

"And is your young master also a friend of this Nicholas Toussaint?" was
the next question, slowly put.

"No," said Adrian, "he has been forbidden the house. M. Toussaint does
not approve of his opinions."

"That is so, is it?" the stranger rejoined with his former gaiety. "And
now enough: where will you lodge me until morning?"

"If my closet will serve you," Felix answered with a hesitation he would
not have felt a few minutes before, "it is at your will. I will bring
some food there at once, and will let you out if you please at five."
And Adrian added some simple directions, by following which his guest
might reach the Rue des Lombards without difficulty.

An hour later if the thoughts of those who lay sleepless under that roof
could have been traced, strange contrasts would have appeared. Was Felix
Portail thinking of his dead father, or of his sweetheart in the Rue des
Lombards, or of his schemes of ambition? Was he blaming the crew of whom
until to-day he had been one, or sullenly cursing those factious
Huguenots as the root of the mischief? Was Adrian thinki