!" my cousin repeated with exceeding bitterness, her foot
tapping the parquet unceasingly. "Do you think he would have stooped
to avenge himself on YOU? On you! Or that he could hurt me one
hundredth part as much here as--as--" She broke off stammering. Her
scorn faltered for an instant. "Bah! he is a man! He knows!" she
exclaimed superbly, her chin in the air, "but you are boys. You do not
understand!"

I looked amazedly at this angry woman. I had a difficulty in
associating her with my cousin. As for Croisette, he stepped forward
abruptly, and picked up a white object which was lying at her feet.

"Yes, read it!" she cried, "read it! Ah!" and she clenched her
little hand, and in her passion struck the oak table beside her, so
that a stain of blood sprang out on her knuckles. "Why did you not
kill him? Why did you not do it when you had the chance? You were
three to one," she hissed. "You had him in your power! You could have
killed him, and you did not! Now he will kill me!"

Madame Claude muttered something tearfully; something about Pavannes
and the saints. I looked over Croisette's shoulder, and read the
letter. It began abruptly without any term of address, and ran thus,
"I have a mission in Paris, Mademoiselle, which admits of no delay,
your mission, as well as my own--to see Pavannes. You have won his
heart. It is yours, and I will bring it you, or his right hand in
token that he has yielded up his claim to yours. And to this I pledge
myself."

The thing bore no signature. It was written in some red fluid--blood
perhaps--a mean and sorry trick! On the outside was scrawled a
direction to Mademoiselle de Caylus. And the packet was sealed with
the Vidame's crest, a wolf's head.

"The coward! the miserable coward!" Croisette cried. He was the
first to read the meaning of the thing. And his eyes were full of
tears--tears of rage.

For me I was angry exceedingly. My veins seemed full of fire, as I
comprehended the mean cruelty which could thus torture a girl.

"Who delivered this?" I thundered. "Who gave it to Mademoiselle? How
did it reach her hands? Speak, some one!"

A maid, whimpering in the background, said that Francis had given it to
her to hand to Mademoiselle.

I ground my teeth together, while Marie, unbidden, left the room to
seek Francis--and a stirrup leather. The Vidame had brought the note
in his pocket no doubt, rightly expecting that he would not get an