impatience growing. "The Auberge de
France has promised me a carriage in the morning. What shall it avail
them at Condillac to keep us here to-night?"

"They may have some project. Oh, monsieur! I am full of fears."

"Dismiss them," he answered lightly; and to reassure her he added,
smiling: "Rest assured we shall keep good watch over you, Rabecque and
I and the troopers. A guard shall remain in the passage throughout the
night. Rabecque and I will take turn about at sentry-go. Will that give
you peace?"

"You are very good," she said, her voice quivering with feeling and real
gratitude, and as he was departing she called after him. "You will be
careful of yourself," she said.

He paused under the lintel, and turned, surprised. "It is a habit of
mine," said he, with a glint of humour in his eye.

But there was no answering smile from her. Her face was all anxiety.

"Beware of pitfalls," she bade him. "Go warily; they are cruelly
cunning, those folk of Condillac. And if evil should befall you..."

"There would still remain Rabecque and the troopers," he concluded.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I implore you to be careful," she insisted.

"You may depend upon me," he said, and closed the door.

Outside he called Rabecque, and together they went below. But mindful of
her fears, he dispatched one of the troopers to stand sentry outside her
door whilst he and his lackey supped. That done, he called the host, and
set himself at table, Rabecque at his elbow in attendance to hand him
the dishes and pour his wine.

Across the low-ceilinged room the four travellers still sat in talk, and
as Garnache seated himself, one of them shouted for the host and asked
in an impatient tone to know if his supper was soon to come.

"In a moment, sir," answered the landlord respectfully, and he turned
again to the Parisian. He went out to bring the latter's meal, and
whilst he was gone Rabecque heard from his master the reason of their
remaining that night in Grenoble. The inference drawn by the astute
lackey--and freely expressed by him--from the lack of horses or
carriages in Grenoble that night, coincided oddly with Valerie's. He
too gave it as his opinion that his master had been forestalled by
the Dowager's people, and without presuming to advise Garnache to go
warily--a piece of advice that Garnache would have resented, to the
extent perhaps of boxing the fellow's ears--he determined, there and
then, to keep a close watch up