and fair are safe in such worthy society, even if
they may chance to find it a little dull."

"How can I believe him, or know that for once he will forego his
purposes of hell?" Sybilla murmured, half to herself.

The Marshal de Retz smiled, if indeed the contraction of muscles which
revealed a line of white teeth can be called by that name. In the
sense in which Astarte would have smiled upon a defenceless sheepfold,
so Gilles de Retz might have been said to smile at his visitor.

"You may believe me, sweet Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, "because
there is one vice which it is needless for me to practise in your
presence, that of uncandour. I give you my word that unless your
friends come worrying me from the land of Scots, the maids shall not
die. Perhaps it were better to warn any visitors that even at
Machecoul we are accustomed to deal with such cases. Is it not so,
Astarte?"

At the sound of her name the huge wolf rose slowly, and, walking to
her master's knee, she nosed upon him like a favourite hound.

"And if your intent be not that which causes fear to haunt the
precincts of your palaces like a night-devouring beast, and makes your
name an execration throughout Brittany and the Vendee, why have you
carried the little child and the other pretty fool forth from their
country? Was it not enough that you should slay the brothers?
Wherefore was it necessary utterly to cut off the race of the
Douglases?"

"Sybilla, dear sister of my sainted Catherine," purred the marshal,
"it is your privilege that you should speak freely. When it is
pleasing to me I may even answer you. It pleases me now, listen--you
know of my devotion to science. You are not ignorant at what cost, at
what vast sacrifices, I have in secret pushed my researches beyond the
very confines of knowledge. The powers of the underworlds are
revealing themselves to me, and to me alone. Evil and good alike shall
be mine. I alone will pluck the blossom of fire, and tear from hell
and hell's master their cherished mystery."

He paused as if mentally to recount his triumphs, and then continued.

"But at the moment of success I am crossed by a prejudice. The
ignorant people clamour against my life--_canaille_! I regard them
not. But nevertheless their foolish prejudices reach other ears.
Hearken!"

And like a showman he beckoned Sybilla to the window. A low roar of
human voices, fitful yet sustained, made itself distinctly audible
above the shrille