e is one ready in Saxe's stable," answered La Mothe. Then, lest
he should be asked the unpleasant question how he came by that
knowledge and for what purpose the horse was in readiness, he added
hastily, "What shall we do with Saxe?"

"Keep Saxe safe until you hear from Valmy; let no one but Villon or
yourself have speech with him. Such a liar would calumniate the King
himself. Now, Stephen, the horses in ten minutes."

"Horses?" said La Mothe blankly. Was he also to leave Amboise now that
a new dawn was breaking?

"Yes, tell two of my men to be ready. I do not trust Tristan, and will
take no risks. An accident might happen to a lonely man on an
all-night's ride."

"And yet," said the girl as La Mothe left the room, "you were ready to
trust Tristan ten minutes ago?"

"But you have opened my eyes. Why? That is the one thing I cannot
understand. We have always been opposed, always at enmity, and never
more bitterly than to-night. Mademoiselle de Vesc, why did you not
take your revenge and let me ruin myself?"

"I might give you a woman's reason and say, Because!" she answered,
speaking more lightly than she had yet spoken; then as she paused a
moment the pale face flushed, and the beginnings of a smile played
about the mouth, only to die away in a tender gravity. "And yet, to
tell the truth, it was a woman's reason: it was because there was once
a friendless, helpless boy, and Philip de Commines--you were neither
Argenton nor Talmont then, monsieur--opened his heart to him."

"But, mademoiselle, to be honest, that was for a woman's sake."

"And," she answered, the flush deepening and the gentle tenderness of
mouth and eyes growing yet more tender, "to be honest, this is for a
man's sake."

Again there was silence, and in the quiet the two who had been enemies,
and might be again for the same cause, drew into a closer, better
comprehension upon a common ground. At heart they were akin--the
politic unscrupulous opportunist vowed to the compulsion of his
ambitions, and the girl who through all her threat of danger had given
no thought to herself. For the sake of the man; for the sake of the
woman: they are the twin cogwheels, working the one into the other,
which keep this great machine of life, this sordid material world, upon
a sure, if slow, ascent from the baser to the nobler, from the kingdoms
of this world to the glory of the Kingdom which is to come.

"A good lad," said Commines at last, speak