dear to me trusted him,
trusted his pledged word with his life, and I humbly pray God's mercy
has him in its keeping, for he found none in Valmy." Sheathing his
sword he sat back in the saddle and smoothed the looted paper
carefully. "Go to Amboise. Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring
him to Valmy without delay. Tell him his orders are cancelled, and on
your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.--LOUIS."

Having read the order through from beginning to end, he read it over a
second time, sentence by sentence, pausing to consider each separately.

"'Go to Amboise.' Monsieur Beaufoy, I do not wish to ask you anything
a man of honour such as you are cannot answer. Do they know you in
Amboise?"

"No," answered Beaufoy, after a moment's consideration; "and if I
thought it mattered one way or the other, you would get no answer from
me. I am from the north, and a stranger both in Valmy and Amboise."

"'Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring him to Valmy without
delay.' It follows that you do not know this Stephen La Mothe nor he
you?"

"No," repeated Beaufoy.

"Nor his offence?"

"Not even that."

"God knows there need be no offence at all. 'Tell him his orders are
cancelled.' Monsieur Beaufoy, I do not ask you what these orders are."

"And if I knew, I would not tell you."

"Then you do not know?"

"No."

"'On your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.' Is it
fair to ask why?"

"Again, if I knew, I would not tell you, but I do not."

"Then it comes to this: you, a stranger in Amboise, are to arrest a
stranger to yourself for an offence of which you are ignorant?"

"With my orders clear and explicit I have no need of knowledge."

"Is this order public property at Valmy?"

"No one knows of it except myself and the King," replied Beaufoy,
clinging desperately to the remnants of his authority.

The other nodded abstractedly, his thoughts busy elsewhere. He quite
recognized the type of man with whom he had to do--light-hearted,
careless, frivolous even up to a certain point, but beyond that
immovable. To question further would be useless, and almost in
violation of the strange code of honour which permitted unscrupulous
violence but respected the right of reticence in an equal--in an equal,
be it observed; an inferior had no rights, none whatever.

"'Bring him to Valmy.'" Turning in his saddle he beckoned to one of
his followers, a man older than the