inn, "monsieur will intrust the child to me--it is a pretty
thing, and see--see--how tired it is!--how it yawns!--then I will do
my best. It may sleep with me, and I am used to children. I have
several little sisters whom I saw to after my mother's death and
before I took service."

"I will intrust it to you most thankfully," St. Georges replied. "Your
face is honest, my girl, and true."

So--telling her, as he had told others on his road, that the child was
motherless--he kissed it, and bade it good-night, saying inwardly, as
he ever said when he parted from it, a little prayer that God would
guard and have it in his keeping, and so let the waitress take it
away. But, because something told him he was in a dangerous
neighbourhood, he impressed upon her that she should in no way leave
it more than was absolutely necessary; above all, he begged her and
the hostler, who was a witness to the proceedings, to remember that
they need say nothing about a child having been left in her care. And
they, with many protestations that they would not chatter, assured him
that he need be under no apprehension.

"I take my rest," the girl said, "at the close of day. The child shall
not leave me till I rise at dawn, nor, indeed, until monsieur returns.
I promise."

Then he let her go away with it, and busied himself next with his
horse, seeing that it was rubbed down and freshened with a feed.
"For," said he, patting its flank, "you have another league to do, my
friend, ere your rest comes." And the animal being refreshed, he gave
the hostler a piece of silver as earnest of more in the morning if he
found he had not been chattering, and so made for the North Gate.

"And now," he said to himself as he passed out, "for the house of the
woman De Vannes loved, the house of the man who, I believe, thirsts
for my life and the life of my child."

CHAPTER IX.

A ROYAL SUMMONS.

"La plus cruelle de toutes les voies par laquelle le roi fut
instruit bien des annees fut celle de l'ouverture des
lettres. Il est incroyable combien des gens de toutes les
sortes en fureut plus ou moins perdus."

_St. Simon._

A fortnight before St. Georges had set out upon his long and, as it
had already proved, hazardous ride from Pontarlier to Paris, four men
were busily employed in a small, neatly furnished _cabinet_ at
Versailles--a little apartment that partook more of the appearanc