her bit of villainous innocence
under Bertrand's saddle-flap. The poor brute was driven mad by it. I
picked this up where Michel's stop-gap dropped it."

"That hedge-side beggar?"

"A hedge-side beggar who carries a signet slung round his neck. His
jacket opened as he stooped and the ring swung out. The hedge-side
beggar boasts a crest, Monsieur La Mothe: a martlet with three mullets
in chief. Now do you understand?"

"No."

"It is the crest of the Molembrais. There were two brothers, the last
of their family, and Guy de Molembrais trusted our revered King--yes, I
see you know the name."

Know the name? La Mothe knew it as he knew the justice of the King.
Had he not given his satire a loose rein over the safe-conduct which
drew this very Guy de Molembrais to Valmy, and the swift ruthlessness
which brushed aside any such feeble plea as a King's good faith? If
Villon was right then this little inch or two of new-cut twig might
indeed be all he said, the shadow of death, revenge, hate, and a
warning against further attempts of a like kind yet to be faced. But
was he right?

"Are you quite sure?"

"Quite," and Villon nodded. His face was very grave: not for an
instant had he slipped into his sardonic mood of ironical jest. "And,
mind you, I find it hard to blame Molembrais. He must strike how and
when he can."

"Does Saxe know?"

"Better not ask. I told you he swore, but that may have been at the
way you pounded his horse."

La Mothe had dismounted while they talked, and now, leaving the grey
where he stood, the sweat caking on his dusty flanks, he turned to the
stables. But if his intention was to charge Molembrais with his
cowardly attempt on the boy's life it was baulked. At the door Michel
met him, his rheumy eyes still blinking from his drunken sleep.

"Where is that fellow who took your place?"

"That's what I want to know, master. Took my place, did he? I'd place
him, I would, making an old man drunk to rob him of his bread."

"Who was he?"

"No good, that's all I know. Gipsy scum! rob an old man, would he?
I'll gipsy him if I find hair or hoof of him. Lord, master, how liquor
do make a man thirsty. You must ha' found it so yourself?"

CHAPTER XV

A QUESTION IN THEOLOGY

Never was the cynical philosophy of the proverb, Virtue is its own
reward, made more clear than in the indifference with which Amboise
greeted the rescue of the Dauphin. Of course, there are those wh