spair.
Perhaps the thought of his wife unmanned him. Perhaps the excitement
through which he had already gone tended to stupefy him, or the
suddenness of the discovery.

At any rate, I was the first to gather my wits together, and my
earliest impulse was to tear into two parts a white handkerchief I had
in my pouch, and fasten one to his sleeve, the other in his hat, in
rough imitation of the badges I wore myself.

It will appear from this that I no longer trusted Madame d'O. I was
not convinced, it is true, of her conscious guilt, still I did not
trust her entirely. "Do not wear them on your return," she had said
and that was odd; although I could not yet believe that she was such a
siren as Father Pierre had warned us of, telling tales from old poets.
Yet I doubted, shuddering as I did so. Her companionship with that
vile priest, her strange eagerness to secure Pavannes' return, her
mysterious directions to me, her anxiety to take her sister home--home,
where she would be exposed to danger, as being in a known Huguenot's
house--these things pointed to but one conclusion; still that one was
so horrible that I would not, even while I doubted and distrusted her,
I would not, I could not accept it. I put it from me, and refused to
believe it, although during the rest of that night it kept coming back
to me and knocking for admission at my brain.

All this flashed through my mind while I was fixing on Pavannes'
badges. Not that I lost time about it, for from the moment I grasped
the position as he conceived it, every minute we had wasted on
explanations seemed to me an hour. I reproached myself for having
forgotten even for an instant that which had brought us to town--the
rescue of Kit's lover. We had small chance now of reaching him in
time, misled as we had been by this miserable mistake in identity. If
my companion's fears were well founded, Louis would fall in the general
massacre of the Huguenots, probably before we could reach him. If
ill-founded, still we had small reason to hope. Bezers' vengeance
would not wait. I knew him too well to think it. A Guise might spare
his foe, but the Vidame--the Vidame never! We had warned Madame de
Pavannes it was true; but that abnormal exercise of benevolence could
only, I cynically thought, have the more exasperated the devil within
him, which now would be ravening like a dog disappointed of its
victuals.

I glanced up at the line of sky visible between the ta