e had been with you long ago, Sire, but for the bright eyes of a lady
of the League. And now she comes to tell me--my page tells me--he is in
the Bastille."

"Ventre-saint-gris! And how has that calamity befallen?"

She hesitated a moment, embarrassed by her very wealth of matter,
confused between her longing to set the whole case before the king, and
her fear of wearying his patience. But his glance told her she need have
no misgiving. Had she come to present him Paris, he could not have been
more interested.

In the little silence Monsieur found his moment and his words.

"Sire, may I interrupt mademoiselle? Last night, for the first time in
a month, I saw my son. He was just returned from an adventure under her
window. Mayenne's guard had set on him, and he was escaped by the skin
of his teeth. He declared to me that never till he was slain should he
cease endeavour to win Mlle. de Montluc. And I? Marry, I ate my words in
humblest fashion. After three years I made my surrender. Since you are
his one desire, mademoiselle, then are you my one desire. I bade him
God-speed."

She gave her hand to Monsieur, sudden tears welling over her lashes.

"Monsieur, I thought to-night I had no friends. And I have so many!"

"Mademoiselle," the king cried in the same breath, "fear not. I will get
you your lover if I sell France for him."

She brushed the tears away and smiled on him.

"I have no fear, Sire. With you and M. de St. Quentin to save him, I can
have no fear. But he is in desperate case. Has M. de St. Quentin told
you of his secretary Lucas, my cousin Paul de Lorraine?"

"Aye," said the king, "it is a dolourous topic--very painful! Eh,
Rosny?"

"I do not shrink from my pains, Sire," M. de Rosny answered quietly. "I
hold myself much to blame in this matter. I thought I knew the Lucases
root and branch--I did not discover that a daughter of the house had
ever been a friend to Henri de Guise."

"And how should you discover it?" the king demanded. He had made the
attack; now, since Rosny would not resent it, he rushed himself to the
defence. "How were you to dream it? Henri de Guise's side was the last
place to look for a girl of the Religion. But I forgive him. If he stole
a Rochelaise, we have avenged it deep: we have stolen the flower of
Lorraine."

"Paul Lucas--Paul de Lorraine," she went on eagerly, "was put into M. le
Duc's house to kill him. He went all the more willingly that he believed
M. de Mar to b