knew
his bitter tongue, knew his shrewdness, and feared both.

"Just so," said Villon cheerfully, "and a week before Monsieur
d'Argenton came to Amboise he told you no one was safe from the King's
sick suspicions, not even if he carried a safe-conduct, and
instanced----"

"Villon is right!" cried La Mothe. "Monsieur d'Argenton--Uncle--thank
God, Villon is right. Guy de Molembrais was alive a week before we
left Valmy. Saxe has lied, lied, lied. Do you see it, Uncle? I knew
he lied. Oh, you hound! you hound! And you had a letter from Valmy
this afternoon? That accounts----"

"Hush, Monsieur La Mothe, hush." Rising from her chair Ursula de Vesc
almost put her hand over La Mothe's mouth in her efforts to silence
him. "You have said enough; do not say too much--too much for
yourself. Charles, Charles, let us thank God together," and, turning
from La Mothe, she caught the boy in her arms, drawing him to her
breast in a passion of relief. It was not difficult to see what her
chief anxiety had been. "Monsieur d'Argenton, surely you are satisfied
now?"

Was he satisfied? By no means. But Commines was spared the
embarrassment of an immediate reply. The door, which Villon had just
quitted, was thrown hastily open and a servant entered, a sealed
envelope in his hand. Ignoring the Dauphin utterly--and it was
indicative of the estimate in which the boy was held--he turned to
Commines.

"From Valmy, for Monsieur d'Argenton, in great haste. The messenger
has left a horse foundered on the road."

"From Valmy? But this is not the King's--there! you can go. See that
the messenger is well cared for."

With his thumb under the silk thread which, passing through the seal,
secured the envelope, Commines paused and, in spite of all his trained
self-control, his face changed. Of all the emotions, fear is, perhaps,
the most difficult to conceal because of its widely varied shades of
expression. With some it is a tightening of the nostrils, with others
a compression of the lips, a change of colour, or a line between the
brows. It may even be the laugh of an assumed carelessness, a pretence
at jest, but upon one and all it leaves some sign. The seal was not
the King's seal, and the handwriting was strange to him.

"Saxe, if you have lied, it will go hard with you, understand that.
No, I can hear nothing now; tomorrow, perhaps, or next day. Monsieur
Villon, place him in safety for to-night, he must not be allowe