oden ceiling.

"Ah, I have the cord!" he exclaimed.

The next instant we heard a faint but most comforting tinkle somewhere
above us. Before we had time to wonder whether any marked it but us, we
heard steps overhead, and a noise as of a chest being pulled about, and
then the trap lifted. We climbed out into a silk-mercer's shop.

"Faith, my man," said M. Etienne to the little bourgeois who had opened
to us, "I am glad to see you appear so promptly."

He looked at us, somewhat troubled or alarmed.

"You must have met--" he suggested with hesitancy.

"Yes," said M. Etienne; "but he did not object. We are, of course, of
the initiated."

"Of course, of course," the little fellow assented, with a funny
assumption of knowing all about it. "Not every one has the secret of the
passage. Well, I can call myself a lucky man. 'Tis mighty few mercers
have a duke in their shop as often as I."

We looked curiously about us. The shop was low and dim, with piles of
stuff in rolls on the shelves, and other stuffs lying loose on the
counter before us, as if the man had just been measuring them--gorgeous
brocades and satins. Above us, a bell on the rafter still quivered.

"Yes, that is the bell of the trap," the proprietor said, following our
glance. "Customers do not know where it rings from. And if I am not at
liberty to open, I drop my brass yardstick on the floor--But they told
you that, doubtless, monsieur?" he added, regarding M. Etienne again a
little uneasily.

"They told me something else I had near forgotten," M. Etienne answered,
and, drawing a crown in the air, gave the password, "For the Cause."

"For the King," the shopkeeper made instant rejoinder, drawing in the
air in his turn a letter C and the numeral X.

M. Etienne laid a gold piece on the counter, and if the shopkeeper had
felt any doubts of this well-dressed gallant who wore no hat, they
vanished in its radiance.

"And now, my friend, let us out into the street and forget our faces."

The man took up his candle to light us to the door.

"Perhaps it would not trouble monsieur to say a word for me over there?"
he suggested, pointing in the direction of the tunnel. "M. le Duc has
every confidence in me. Still, it would do no harm if monsieur should
mention how quickly I let him out."

"When I see him, I will surely mention it," M. Etienne promised him.
"Continue to be vigilant to-night, my friend. There is another man to
come."

Followed by the litt