ed. But that was last week. Dame! you slept like a sabot."

It did not take me long to brush the straw off me, wash my face at the
trough, and present myself before monsieur. He was dressed and sitting
at table in his bedchamber, while a drawer served him with dinner.

"You are out of bed, monsieur," I cried.

"But yes," he answered, springing up, "I am as well as ever I was.
Felix, what has happened to you?"

[Illustration: "SORRY TO DISTURB MONSIEUR, BUT THE HORSES MUST BE
FED."]

I glanced at the serving-man; M. Etienne ordered him at once from the
room.

"Now tell me quickly," he cried, as I faltered, tongue-tied from very
richness of matter. "Mademoiselle?"

"Ah, mademoiselle!" I exclaimed. "Mademoiselle is--" I paused in a
dearth of words worthy of her.

"She is, she is!" he agreed, laughing. "Oh, go on, you little slow-poke!
You saw her? And she said--"

He was near to laying hands on me, to hurry my tale.

"I saw her and Mayenne and Lucas and ever so many things," I told him.
"And they had me flogged, and mademoiselle loves you."

"She does!" he cried, flushing. "Felix, does she? You cannot know."

"But I do know it," I answered, not very lucidly. "You see, she wouldn't
have wept so much, just over me."

"Did she weep? Lorance?" he exclaimed.

"They flogged me," I said. "They didn't hurt me much. But she came down
in the night with a candle and cried over me."

"And what said she? Now I am sorry they beat you. Who did that? Mayenne?
What said she, Felix?"

"And then," I went on, not heeding his questions in sudden remembrance
of my crowning news, "Mayenne and Lucas came in. And here is something
you do not know, monsieur. Lucas is Paul de Lorraine, Henri de Guise's
son."

"Mille tonnerres du ciel! But he is a Huguenot, a Rochelais!"

"Yes, but he is a son of Henri le Balafre. His mother was Rochelaise, I
think. He was a spy for Navarre and captured at Ivry. They were going to
hang him when Mayenne, worse luck, recognized him for a nephew. Since
then he has been spying for them. Because Mayenne promised him Mlle. de
Montluc in marriage."

He stared at me with dropped jaw, absolutely too startled to swear.

"He has not got her yet!" I cried. "Mayenne told him he should have her
when he had killed St. Quentin. And St. Quentin is alive."

"Great God!" said M. Etienne, only half aloud, dropping down on the arm
of his chair, overcome to realize the issue that had hung on a paltry
handful of