ad thrust
his sword through his body--I heard him shriek; I saw him fall! A
moment later the woman had snatched up the child and was hurrying back
to the city, the man following after her, his left arm hanging
straight by his side, as though still from pain. And I ran to this one
here and saw that he had got his death. 'Tis strange he died not
sooner than to-night. Strange he should linger so long."

"How got you him here?"

"My brother, who hates the De Roquemaures as I do--as God knows I have
cause to do--works near here on his farm. I dragged that dead
creature, all insensible as he was, into the copse, then fetched Jean,
and so, together, we brought him. Say," the woman continued, leaning
forward under the lamp to regard the soldier fixedly, "you are a
gentleman, an officer of some regiment. You can tell me. Is not so
foul a crime as this enough to doom De Roquemaure, if brought home to
him?"

"If brought home to him, perhaps. But the nobles are powerful. You say
that he is so, especially in this neighbourhood."

"Curse him, yes!" she replied, her livid lips drawn tight together.
"Yet not forever. There are those who will set the snare and trap him
yet."

"I pray God!" St. Georges replied. "He has wronged many; surely
justice will yet be done."

CHAPTER XIV.

"I MUST SPEAK!"

The Epiphany--called in old France, under the Bourbons, _la Fete des
Rois_--was drawing to a close, as St. Georges, his handsome face
looking very dejected and his heart heavy as lead within him, rode
into Paris by the Charenton gate.

Not so entirely over, however, but that the streets were still crowded
with holiday makers of all kinds, with those who were there solely to
enjoy and amuse themselves, and also with those who sought to make
profit out of the others. Moreover, still from all the towers and
steeples the bells rang in honour of those who had died during the
past year, so that, as Boileau sneeringly remarked, "_Pour honorer les
morts ils font mourir les vivants_," while from the dark,
sombre-looking houses--of which the same writer observed that they
must have been built by philosophers instead of architects, so filthy
were they without and so brilliant within--were still hung paper
lanterns, flags, banners, and all kinds of devices and decorations.

St. Georges had found it difficult to pick his way through the many
obstacles with which the streets were encumbered from the time he left
the Bastille and the Ru