e my favoured suitor. He tried to draw M. de Mar into the
scheme, to ruin him. He failed. And the whole plot came to naught."

"I have learned that," the king said. "I have been told how a country
boy stripped his mask off."

He glanced around suddenly at me where I stood red and abashed. He was
so quick that he grasped everything at half a word. Instantly he had
turned to the lady again. "Pray continue, dear mademoiselle."

"Afterward--that is, yesterday--Paul went to M. de Belin and swore
against M. de Mar that he had murdered a lackey in his house in the Rue
Coupejarrets. The lackey was murdered there, but Paul de Lorraine did
it. The man knew the plot; Paul killed him to stop his tongue. I heard
him confess it to M. de Mayenne. I and this Felix Broux were in the
oratory and heard it."

"Then M. de Mar was arrested?"

"Not then. The officers missed him. To-day he came to our house, dressed
as an Italian jeweller, with a case of trinkets to sell. Madame
admitted him; no one knew him but me and my chamber-*mate. On the way
out, Mayenne met him and kept him while he chose a jewel. Paul de
Lorraine was there too. I was like to die of fear. I went in to M. de
Mayenne; I begged him to come out with me to supper, to dismiss the
tradespeople that I might talk with him there--anything. But it availed
not. M. de Mayenne spoke freely before them, as one does before common
folk. Presently he led me to supper. Paul was left alone with M. de Mar
and the boy. He recognized them. He was armed, and they were not, but
they overbore him and locked him up in the closet."

"Mordieu, mademoiselle! I was to rescue M. de Mar for your sake, but now
I will do it for his own. I find him much to my liking. He came away
clear, mademoiselle?"

"Aye, to be seized in the street by the governor's men. When M. de
Mayenne found how he had been tricked, Sire, he blazed with rage."

"I'll warrant he did!" the king answered, suppressing, however, in
deference to her distress, his desire to laugh. "Ventre-saint-gris,
mademoiselle! forgive me if this amuses me here at St. Denis. I trow it
was not amusing in the Hotel de Lorraine."

"He sent for me, Sire," she went on, blanching at the memory; "he
accused me of shielding M. de Mar. It was true. He called me liar,
traitor, wanton. He said I was false to my house, to my bread, to my
honour. He said I had smiling lips and a Judas-heart--that I had kissed
him and betrayed him. I had given him my promi