o in your place. I have done with that fool Monmouth,
and the French King would suit me well for a master."

"Then ask him to take you also."

"He will not; he'll rather take you."

"Then I'll go," said I.

He drew a step nearer to me. I watched him closely, for, on my life, I
did not know in what mood he was, and his honour was ill to lean on as a
waving reed.

"What will you gain by going?" he asked. "And if you fly he will take
me. Somebody he must take."

"Is not M. Colbert enough?"

He looked at me suspiciously, as though he thought that I assumed
ignorance.

"You know very well that Colbert wouldn't serve his purpose."

"By my faith," I cried, "I don't know what his purpose is."

"You swear it?" he asked in distrust and amazement.

"Most willingly," I answered. "It is simple truth."

He gazed at me still as though but half-convinced.

"Then what's your purpose in going?" he asked.

"I obey my orders. Yet I have a purpose, and one I had rather trust with
myself than with you, my lord."

"Pray, sir, what is it?"

"To serve and guard the lady who goes also."

After a moment of seeming surprise, he broke into a sneering laugh.

"You go to guard her?" he said.

"Her and her honour," I answered steadily. "And I do not desire to
resign that task into your hands, my lord."

"What will you do? How will you serve her?" he asked.

A sudden suspicion of him seized me. His manner had changed to a forced
urbanity; when he was civil he was treacherous.

"That's my secret, my lord," I answered. "I have preparations to make. I
pray you, give me leave." I opened the door and held it for him.

His rage mastered him; he grew red and the veins swelled on his
forehead.

"By heaven, you shan't go," he cried, and clapped his hand to his sword.

"Who says that Mr Dale shall not go?"

A man stood in the doorway, plainly attired, wearing boots, and a cloak
that half-hid his face. Yet I knew him, and Carford knew him. Carford
shrank back, I bowed, and we both bared our heads. M. de Perrencourt
advanced into the room, fixing his eyes on Carford.

"My lord," he said, "when I decline a gentleman's services I am not to
be forced into accepting them, and when I say a gentleman shall go with
me he goes. Have you a quarrel with me on that account?"

Carford found no words in which to answer him, but his eyes told that he
would have given the world to draw his sword against M. de Perrencourt,
or, indeed, against t