oo. There is no direct witness to the thing but the boy
Broux."

"That's as good as to say there is none," Mayenne answered; "for I have
the boy."

XVI

_Mayenne's ward._

Lucas sprang up.

"You have him? Where?"

"Yes, I have him," Mayenne answered with his tantalizing slowness.

"Alive?"

"I suppose so. He had his flogging but I told them I was not done with
him. I thought we might have a use for him. He is in the oratory there."

"Diable! Listening?" cried Lucas, as if a quick doubt of Mayenne's good
faith to him struck his mind.

"Certainly not," Mayenne answered. "The door is bolted; he might be in
the street for all he can hear. The wall was built for that."

"What will you do with him, monsieur?"

"We'll have him out," said Mayenne. Lucas, needing no second bidding,
hastened down the room.

All this while mademoiselle, on the floor at my feet, had neither
stirred nor whispered, as rigid as the statued Virgin herself. But now
she rose and for one moment laid her hand on my shoulder with an
encouraging pat; the next she flung the door wide just as Lucas reached
the threshold.

He recoiled as from a ghost.

"Lorance!" he gasped, "Lorance!"

"Nom de dieu!" came Mayenne's shout from the back of the room. "What!
Lorance!"

He caught up the candelabrum and strode over to us.

Mademoiselle stepped out into the council-room, I hanging back on the
other side of the sill. She was as white as linen, but she lifted her
head proudly. She had not the courage that knows no fear, but she had
the courage that rises to the need. Crouching on the oratory floor she
had been in a panic lest they find her. But in the moment of discovery
she faced them unflinching.

"You spying here, Lorance!" Mayenne stormed at her.

"I did not come here to spy, monsieur," she answered. "I was here first,
as you see. Your presence was as unlooked for by me as mine by you."

His next accusation brought the blood in scarlet flags to her pale
cheeks; she made him no answer but burned him with her indignant eyes.

"Mordieu, monsieur!" Lucas cried. "This is Mlle. de Montluc."

"Then why did you come?" demanded Mayenne.

"Because I had done harm to the lad and was sorry," she said. "You
defend me now, Paul, but you did not hesitate to make a tool of me in
your cowardly schemes."

"It was kindly meant, mademoiselle," Lucas retorted. "Since I shall kill
M. le Comte de Mar in any case, I thought it would pleasure you to