aris. But it matters not, M. Etienne. Monsieur
suspects nothing against you. Felix kept your name from him. And by the
time I had screwed it out of Martin, Monsieur was gone."

"Gone out of Paris?" M. Etienne echoed blankly. To his eagerness it was
as if M. le Duc were out of France.

"Aye. He meant to go to-night--Monsieur, Lucas, and I. But when Monsieur
learned of this plot, he swore he'd go in open day. 'If the League must
kill me,' says he, 'they can do it in daylight, with all Paris
watching.' That's Monsieur!"

At this I understood how Vigo came to be in the Rue Coupejarrets.
Monsieur, in his distress and anxiety to be gone from that unhappy
house, had forgotten the spy. Left to his own devices, the equery,
struck with suspicion at Lucas's absence, laid instant hands on Martin
the clerk, with whom Lucas, disliked in the household, had had some
intimacy. It had not occurred to Vigo that M. le Comte, if guilty,
should be spared. At once he had sounded boots and saddles.

"I will return with you, Vigo," M. le Comte said. "Does the meanest
lackey in my father's house call me parricide, I must meet the charge.
My father and I have differed but if we are no longer friends we are
still noblemen. I could never plot his murder, nor could he for one
moment believe it of me."

I, guilty wretch, quailed. To take a flogging were easier than to
confess to him the truth. But I conceived I must.

"Monsieur," I said, "I told M. le Duc you were guilty. I went back a
second time and told him."

"And he?" cried M. Etienne.

"Yes, monsieur, he did believe it."

"Morbleu! that cannot be true," Vigo cried, "for when I saw him he gave
no sign."

"It is true. But he would not have M. le Comte touched. He said he could
not move in the matter; he could not punish his own kin."

M. le Comte's face blazed as he cried out:

"Vastly magnanimous! I thank him not. I'll none of his mercy. I expected
his faith."

"You had no claim to it, M. le Comte."

"Vigo!" cried the young noble, "you are insolent, sirrah!"

"I cry monsieur's pardon."

He was quite respectful and quite unabashed. He had meant no insolence.
But M. Etienne had dared criticise the duke and that Vigo did not allow.

M. Etienne glared at him in speechless wrath. It would have liked him
well to bring this contumelious varlet to his knees. But how? It was a
byword that Vigo minded no man's ire but the duke's. The King of France
could not dash him.

Vigo went on