office.

"What mean you?" she repeated--adding with a sinister smile, "in your
zeal, Sir Abbot, you are forgetting that my men are within call."

"So, madame, are mine," was his astounding answer, and he waved a hand
towards the array of monks, all standing with bowed heads and folded
arms.

At that her laughter rang shrill through the chamber. "These poor
shavelings?" she questioned.

"Just these poor shavelings, madame," he answered, and he raised his
hand again and made a sign. And then an odd thing happened, and it
struck a real terror into the heart of the Marquise and heightened that
which was already afflicting her fat lover, Tressan.

The monks drew themselves erect. It was as if a sudden gust of wind had
swept through their ranks and set them all in motion. Cowls fell back
and habits were swept aside, and where twenty monks had stood, there
were standing now a score of nimble, stalwart men in the livery of
Condillac, all fully armed, all grinning in enjoyment of her and
Tressan's dismay.

One of them turned aside and locked the door of the chamber. But his
movement went unheeded by the Dowager, whose beautiful eyes, starting
with horror, were now back upon the grim figure of the Abbot, marvelling
almost to see no transformation wrought in him.

"Treachery!" she breathed, in an awful voice, that was no louder than
a whisper, and again her eyes travelled round the company, and suddenly
they fastened upon Fortunio, standing six paces from her to the right,
pulling thoughtfully at his mustachios, and manifesting no surprise at
what had taken place.

In a sudden, blind choler, she swept round, plucked the dagger from
Tressan's belt and flung herself upon the treacherous captain. He had
betrayed her in some way; he had delivered up Condillac--into whose
power she had yet had no time to think. She caught him by the throat
with a hand of such nervous strength as one would little have suspected
from its white and delicate contour. Her dagger was poised in the air,
and the captain, taken thus suddenly, was palsied with amazement and
could raise no hand to defend himself from the blow impending.

But the Abbot stepped suddenly to her side and caught her wrist in his
thin, transparent hand.

"Forbear," he bade her. "The man is but a tool."

She fell back--dragged back almost by the Abbot--panting with rage and
grief; and then she noticed that during the moment that her back had
been turned the pall had been