ll have need of it."

CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT

The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were
wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath
the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband
with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender
fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these
slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each
carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more
rose to his knees.

He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the
recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not
actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not
have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him.

"Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care.
Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling
those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their
will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out
an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in
peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three
letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them
under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come
and that I could give them to you then."

He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips.
He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into
the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought
the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection
of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after
a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper
scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the
prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly
had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength.

But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the
humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He
did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that
the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that
Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while...

No! he did not tell her all that; the recollecti