all. He sprang down to the floor again, and was thinking
how he should best set to work, when a groan drew his attention to his
companion.

"You seem sick, friend," said he.

"Sick in mind," moaned the other. "Oh, the cursed fool that I have
been! It maddens me!"

"Something on your mind?" said Amos Green, sitting down upon his billets
of wood. "What was it, then?"

The guardsman made a movement of impatience. "What was it? How can you
ask me, when you know as well as I do the wretched failure of my
mission. It was the king's wish that the archbishop should marry them.
The king's wish is the law. It must be the archbishop or none.
He should have been at the palace by now. Ah, my God! I can see the
king's cabinet, I can see him waiting, I can see madame waiting, I can
hear them speak of the unhappy De Catinat--" He buried his face in his
hands once more.

"I see all that," said the American stolidly, "and I see something
more."

"What then?"

"I see the archbishop tying them up together."

"The archbishop! You are raving."

"Maybe. But I see him."

"He could not be at the palace."

"On the contrary, he reached the palace about half an hour ago."

De Catinat sprang to his feet. "At the palace!" he screamed. "Then who
gave him the message?"

"I did," said Amos Green.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A NIGHT OF SURPRISES.

If the American had expected to surprise or delight his companion by
this curt announcement he was woefully disappointed, for De Catinat
approached him with a face which was full of sympathy and trouble, and
laid his hand caressingly upon his shoulder.

"My dear friend," said he, "I have been selfish and thoughtless. I have
made too much of my own little troubles and too little of what you have
gone through for me. That fall from your horse has shaken you more than
you think. Lie down upon this straw, and see if a little sleep may
not--"

"I tell you that the bishop is there!" cried Amos Green impatiently.

"Quite so. There is water in this jug, and if I dip my scarf into it
and tie it round your brow--"

"Man alive! Don't you hear me! The bishop is there."

"He is, he is," said De Catinat soothingly. "He is most certainly
there. I trust that you have no pain?"

The American waved in the air with his knotted fists. "You think that I
am crazed," he cried, "and, by the eternal, you are enough to make me
so! When I say that I sent the bishop, I mean that I saw to t