olding it outstretched with an arm gowned in
pure white before dropping it with a rustle of heavy silken fabric
upon the ground.

The Marshal de Retz wrote on without appearing to be conscious of any
new presence in his private chamber. The girl stood regarding him,
with eyes that blazed with an intent so deadly and a hate so
all-possessing that the yellow treachery in those of Astarte the
she-wolf appeared kind and affectionate by contrast.

At the girl's entrance that shaggy beast had raised herself upon her
fore paws, and presently she gave vent to a low growl, half of
distrust and half of warning, which at once reached the ears of the
busy worker.

Gilles de Retz looked up quickly, and, catching sight of the Lady
Sybilla, with a sweep of his hand he thrust his manuscript into an
open drawer of the escritoire.

"Ah, Sybilla," he said, leaning back in his chair with an air of easy
familiarity, "you are more sparing of your visits to me than of yore.
To what do I owe the pleasure and honour of this one?"

The girl eyed him long before answering. She stood statue-still by the
curtain at the entrance of the apartment, ignoring the chair which the
marshal had offered her with a bow and a courteous wave of his hand.

"I have come," she made answer at last, in the deep even tones which
she had used before the council of the traitors at Stirling, "to
demand from you, Messire Gilles de Retz, what you mean to do with the
little Margaret Douglas and her companion, whom you wickedly
kidnapped from their own country and have brought with you in your
train to France?"

"I have satisfaction in informing you," replied the marshal, suavely,
"that it is my purpose to dispose of both these agreeable young ladies
entirely according to my own pleasure."

The girl caught at her breast with her hand, as if to stay a sudden
spasm of pain.

"Not at Tiffauges--" she gasped, "not at Champtoce?"

The marshal leaned back, enjoying her terror, as one tastes in slow
sips a rare brand of wine. He found the flavour of her fears
delicious.

"No, Sybilla," he replied at last, "neither at Champtoce nor yet at
Tiffauges--for the present, that is, unless some of your Scottish
friends come over to rescue them out of my hands."

"How, then, do you intend to dispose of them?" she urged.

"I shall send them to your puking sister and her child, hiding their
heads and sewing their samplers at Machecoul. What more can you ask?
Surely the young