boured harder or
planned better than I. I have been diligent, I have been clever. I have
made my worst enemy my willing tool--I have made Monsieur's own son my
cat's-paw. I have left no end loose, no contingency unprovided for--and
I am ruined by a freak of fate."

"I never knew a failure yet but what the fault was fate's," Mayenne
returned.

"Call it accident, then, call it the devil, call it what you like!"
Lucas cried. "I still maintain it was not my fault. Listen, monsieur."

He sat down again and began his story, striving as he talked to
reconquer something of his old coolness.

"The thing was ruined by the advent of this boy, Mar's lackey I spoke
of. You said he had not been here?"

"You may go to Lorance with that question," Mayenne answered; "I have
something else to attend to than the intrigues of my wife's maids."

"He started hither; I thought some one would have the sense to keep him.
Mordieu! I will find from Lorance whether she saw him."

He fell silent, gnawing his lip; I could see that his thought had
travelled away from the plot to the sore subject of mademoiselle's
affections.

"Well," said Mayenne, sharply, "what about your boy?"

It was a moment before Lucas answered. When he did he spoke low and
hurriedly, so that I could scarce catch the words. I knew it was no fear
of listeners that kept his voice down--they had shouted at each other
as if there was no one within a mile. I guessed that Lucas, for all his
bravado, took little pride in his tale, nor felt happy about its
reception. I could catch names now and then, Monsieur's, M. Etienne's,
Grammont's, but the hero of the tale was myself.

"You let him to the duke?" Mayenne cried presently.

At the harsh censure of his voice, Lucas's rang out with the old
defiance:

"With Vigo at his back I did. Sangdieu! you have yet to make the
acquaintance of St. Quentin's equery. A regiment of your lansquenets
couldn't keep him out."

"Does he never take wine?" Mayenne asked, lifting his hand with shut
fingers over the table and then opening them.

"That is easy to say, monsieur, sitting here in your own hotel stuffed
with your soldiers. But it was not so easy to do, alone in my enemy's
house, when at the least suspicion of me they had broken me on the
wheel."

"That is the rub!" Mayenne cried violently. "That is the trouble with
all of you. You think more of the safety of your own skins than of
accomplishing your work. Mordieu! where should I