breath, crouched lower,
and, with the Dauphin's sword at the charge, he flung himself into the
gap breast-forward, missed his thrust, splintered the blade against the
wall, and with a wild clutch drew all within reach into his grip. For
an instant they hung upon a stair-edge, then, in a writhing,
floundering mass, breast to breast, breathless, half dead or dying,
they rolled to the floor. From behind La Mothe heard Ursula de Vesc
cry, "Oh God! pity him!" in a sob. But he dared not turn, his own
blood-drunkenness fired him to the finger-tips and he lunged furiously,
getting home a stroke above a point lowered in the surprise. Again
there was a rush of iron-shod feet upon the stones, but a rush
downward, a moment's pause below, a crossing babel of passionate,
clamouring voices, insistence, denial, and yet more denial, then a
silence--or what seemed a silence--a few hoarse whispers and a cry or
two of pain. Yes, the end had come. In the corner stood the Dauphin
and, half in front, Ursula de Vesc, her arm stretched out across his
breast in the old attitude of protection. Marcel lay beside them in a
faint.

"Hugues?" There was a question and a cry in the boy's one word.

"Charles, Charles, have you nothing to say to the brave men who almost
died for you?"

"Hugues loved me," he answered, and at the bitter pathos of the reply
La Mothe forgot the ingratitude. There were so few who loved him. But
the girl could not forget.

"Monsieur La Follette, Monsieur La Mothe," she began, but broke off
with a cry. "Oh, Monsieur La Follette, you are wounded? What can I
do? Words can come afterwards, and all my life I will remember, all my
life. Are you dreadfully hurt? Can I not do something?" But though
she spoke to La Follette her eyes, after the first glance, were busy
searching Stephen La Mothe for just such an ominous stain as showed in
brown patches upon La Follette. But there was none. Breathless,
dishevelled, his clothing slashed, he was without a scratch, and the
strained anxiety faded from her face.

"I can wait," answered La Follette, "we must get the Dauphin to the
Chateau. La Mothe, see if they are gone," and he glanced significantly
down the stairway. La Follette knew something of war, and there must
be sights below it were better Ursula de Vesc should not see lest they
haunt her all her life, sleeping or waking.

But the Dauphin, his nerves strained and raw, had grown petulant.

"It is safe enough