upon it, and there, stark and
clear, an offence against the sweetness of the new day, were the three
royal gibbets. Their sinister hint was emphatic. The justice of the
King was without mercy, and sombrely he asked himself, Was he so sure
that in his failure he had no need of forgiveness? Was it not rather
true that with Louis failure had always need of forgiveness and was
never forgiven? He was not so certain, now that his blood was sluggish
in the vapoury chill of dawn, but that he had been hasty in quitting
Amboise at all; and yet, what if Tristan, playing on the jealous
suspicions of the King, had set a trap? And even as he speculated with
dull eyes whether there was a trap or no, whether the King lived at
all, and what course was the most politic to follow, a stir of life
woke at Valmy: a small troop passed out from the grey arch facing the
river and took the Tours road. The distance was too great to
distinguish who comprised it. But Valmy was awake, and with Valmy
awake the sooner he faced his doubts the better--doubts grow by
nursing, and given time enough their weight will kill.

Walking briskly forward he mounted and urged his tired horse to its
best speed. That it should reach Valmy in its last extremity,
foam-flecked and caked with sweat, would appeal to the King's sick
suspicions. It was a petty trick, mean and contemptible, but had the
King not played a still more mean and contemptible trick on him?
Commines knew with whom he had to deal; it was the vulgar cunning his
master had taught him, and any apparent absence of anxious haste would
be a point lost in the game: so their spurs were red, and their beasts
utterly blown, utterly weary from their last climb up the river's bank
when they drew rein before the outer guard-house. The Tours troop was
already out of sight.

Lessaix himself was on duty, and as he came forward with outstretched
hand Commines required no second glance to tell himself that Ursula de
Vesc had construed Tristan's letter aright. Not so frankly would he
have been greeted if Valmy's master lay dead in Valmy.

"The King expects you," he said, "and by your horses' looks you have
lost no time on the road." As he spoke he ran his finger-tips up the
hot neck, leaving tracks of roughened, sweaty hair behind the pressure.

"When did you leave Amboise?"

"The King expects me? How can that be?"

Then as Lessaix, scenting a mystery, looked up curiously Commines made
haste to co