is voice and manner again asserting
itself. "I put myself at your service, Madame, and danger disappears!
I am as God to-night with powers of life and death! You do not
understand me? Presently you shall. But you are ready. We will go
then. Out of the way, fellow!" he thundered, advancing upon the door.

But Mirepoix, who had placed himself with his back to it, to my
astonishment did not give way. His full bourgeois face was pale; yet
peeping through my chink, I read in it a desperate resolution. And
oddly--very oddly, because I knew that, in keeping Madame de Pavannes a
prisoner, he must be in the wrong--I sympathised with him. Low-bred
trader, tool of Pavannes though he was, I sympathised with him, when he
said firmly:

"She shall not go!"

"I say she shall!" the priest shrieked, losing all control over
himself. "Fool! Madman! You know not what you do!" As the words
passed his lips, he made an adroit forward movement, surprised the
other, clutched him by the arms, and with a strength I should never
have thought lay in his meagre frame, flung him some paces into the
room. "Fool!" he hissed, shaking his crooked fingers at him in
malignant triumph. "There is no man in Paris, do you hear--or woman
either--shall thwart me to-night!"

"Is that so? Indeed?"

The words, and the cold, cynical voice, were not those of Mirepoix;
they came from behind. The priest wheeled round, as if he had been
stabbed in the back. I clutched Croisette, and arrested the cramped
limb I was moving under cover of the noise. The speaker was Bezers! He
stood in the open door-way, his great form filling it from post to
post, the old gibing smile on his face. We had been so taken up,
actors and audience alike, with the altercation, that no one had heard
him ascend the stairs. He still wore the black and silver suit, but it
was half hidden now under a dark riding cloak which just disclosed the
glitter of his weapons. He was booted and spurred and gloved as for a
journey.

"Is that so?" he repeated mockingly, as his gaze rested in turn on
each of the four, and then travelled sharply round the room. "So you
will not be thwarted by any man in Paris, to-night, eh? Have you
considered, my dear Coadjutor, what a large number of people there are
in Paris? It would amuse me very greatly now--and I'm sure it would
the ladies too, who must pardon my abrupt entrance--to see you put to
the test; pitted against--shall we say the Du