e yet more direct and more speedy?--Let your witness attend.--We
will to the Castle at the hour before noon. Some articles we will minute
down with which he shall comply, or woe on his head! Others shall depend
upon the proof. Break up the council, and dismiss yourselves. I will but
change my dress, as this is scarce a fitting trim in which to wait on my
most gracious Sovereign."

With a deep and bitter emphasis on the last expression, the Duke arose
and strode out of the room.

"Louis's safety, and, what is worse, the honour of Burgundy, depend on
a cast of the dice," said D'Hymbercourt to Crevecoeur and to De Comines.
"Haste thee to the Castle, De Comines, thou hast a better filed
tongue than either Crevecoeur or I. Explain to Louis what storm is
approaching--he will best know how to pilot himself. I trust this Life
Guardsman will say nothing which can aggravate; for who knows what may
have been the secret commission with which he was charged?"

"The young man," said Crevecoeur, "seems bold, yet prudent and wary far
beyond his years. In all which he said to me he was tender of the King's
character, as of that of the Prince whom he serves. I trust he will
be equally so in the Duke's presence. I must go seek him, and also the
young Countess of Croye."

"The Countess--you told us you had left her at Saint Bridget's"

"Ay, but I was obliged," said the Count, "to send for her express, by
the Duke's orders; and she has been brought hither on a litter, as being
unable to travel otherwise. She was in a state of the deepest distress,
both on account of the uncertainty of the fate of her kinswoman, the
Lady Hameline, and the gloom which overhangs her own, guilty as she has
been of a feudal delinquency, in withdrawing herself from the protection
of her liege lord, Duke Charles, who is not the person in the world
most likely to view with indifference what trenches on his seignorial
rights."

The information that the young Countess was in the hands of Charles,
added fresh and more pointed thorns to Louis's reflections. He was
conscious that, by explaining the intrigues by which he had induced
the Lady Hameline and her to resort to Peronne, she might supply that
evidence which he had removed by the execution of Zamet Maugrabin,
and he knew well how much such proof of his having interfered with the
rights of the Duke of Burgundy would furnish both motive and pretext for
Charles's availing himself to the uttermost of his presen