. Then with a sigh, which was almost a groan, Louis roused
himself. Reaching out his hand he raised to his lips a little silver
image of Saint Denis, one of a group which filled a corner of the
table, some standing upright, some pitched upon their faces without
regard to reverence or respect. Kissing it fervently he again sighed,
his eyes raised to the groined roof, and shook his head sadly. If
Saint Denis did not whisper inspiration he at least spun out the time
for thought. Commines' request was reasonable, and he was at a loss
how plausibly to evade it.

"Have I your leave, sire?"

"Eh?" Down came the King's hand upon the paper, Saint Denis grasped,
baton-fashion, by the feet. "No, Philip, no, I think not. It is in
confidence, and above all things a king must respect confidence, or how
could he be trusted?" A sentence which sounded strange from the lips
of a man who never kept a treaty he could break to his own advantage,
or, to give him his due, to the advantage of France.

"That I can understand," answered Commines, as gravely as if his
master's tortuous road to the consolidation of the kingdom had not been
strewn with ruptured contracts, unscrupulous chicanery, and solemn
pledges brazenly evaded. "But how am I to act? How can I, in the
dark, parry a blow from the dark?"

"Suspect every one," answered Louis, brushing aside Saint Denis as he
turned sharply in his chair. The saint had served his turn. He had
been invoked in a perplexity, and now that the way was clear, no doubt
in answer to the invocation, he was flung aside without ceremony.
"Suspect every one. To suspect all you meet is the first great rule of
prudence, wisdom, success; and to suspect your own self is the second.
Go to Amboise. Remember there is no if, and sift, search, find, but
especially find."

"Find what, sire?"

For answer Louis clutched the paper yet tighter and shook it in the
air, and if Commines could but have guessed it, there was a double
meaning in the action and the words which accompanied it.

"Find this!"

"And having found?" Commines paused, conscious that the ground was
treacherous under his feet. "Sire, remember he is the Dauphin and the
son of France."

CHAPTER III

FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE

With a quick gesture, the arm thrust out, the hand open, the fingers
spread, Louis shrank back, his other arm across his face. It was a
movement eloquent of pathos, despair, and suffering; then, with another