she repeated. "In all my life I
have never been in the streets alone--not even for one step at noonday.
Now will you tell me, M. Vigo, that I cannot go to St. Denis?"

"Mademoiselle, it is yours to say what you can do."

As for me, I dropped on my knees and laid my lips to her fingers,
softly, for fear even their pressure might hurt her tenderness.

"Mademoiselle!" I cried in pure delight. "Mademoiselle, that you are
here!"

She flushed under my words.

"Ah, it is no little thing brought me. You knew M. de Mar was arrested?"

We assented; she went on, more to me than to Vigo, as if in telling me
she was telling M. Etienne. She spoke low, as if in pain.

"After supper M. de Mayenne went back to his cabinet and let out Paul de
Lorraine."

"I wish we had killed him," I muttered. "We had no time or weapons."

"M. de Mayenne sent for me then," she went on, wetting her lips. "I have
never seen him so angry. He was furious because M. de Mar had been
before his face and he had not known it. He felt he had been made a mock
of. He raged against me--I never knew he could be so angry. He said the
Spanish envoy was too good for me; I should marry Paul de Lorraine
to-morrow."

"Mordieu, mademoiselle!"

"That was not it. I had borne that!" she cried. "Mayhap I deserved it.
But while my lord thundered at me, word came that M. de Mar was taken.
My lord swore he should die. He swore no man ever set him at naught and
lived to boast of it."

"Will--"

She swept on unheeding:

"He said he should be tried for the murder of Pontou--he should be
tortured to make him confess it."

She dropped down on her knees, hiding her face in her arms on the table,
shaking from head to foot as in an ague. Vigo swore to himself, loudly,
violently: "If Mayenne do that, by the throne of Heaven, I'll kill him!"

She sprang to her feet, dry-eyed, fierce as a young lioness.

"Is that all you can say? Mayenne may torture him and be killed for it?"

"I shall send to the duke--" Vigo began.

"Aye! I shall go to the duke! I can say who killed Pontou. I know much
besides to tell the king. I was Mayenne's cousin, but if he would save
his secrets he must give up M. de Mar. Mother of God! I have been his
obedient child; I have let him do so with me as he would. I sent my
lover away. I consented to the Spanish marriage. But to this I will not
submit. He shall not torture and kill Etienne de Mar!"

Vigo took her hand and kissed it.

"Shall we st