tself heard above
the hush; a hush which was not silence so much as a subdued hum. As
Mademoiselle passed the closed house beside the Cloister of St. Germain,
where only the day before Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots,
had been wounded, she pressed her escort's hand, and involuntarily drew
nearer to him. But he laughed at her.

"It was a private blow," he said, answering her unspoken thought. "It is
like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what is the King's
will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. It will not
happen again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards"--they were
passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,
abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings--"whom the
King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."

"Cosseins?" she repeated. "But I thought Cosseins--"

"Was not wont to love us!" Tignonville answered, with a confident
chuckle. "He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills,
Mademoiselle. He was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all."

"I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she murmured. She felt
impelled to say it.

"Not it!" he answered confidently. "Why should it?"

They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, at the corner of the
Rue St. Honore opposite the Croix du Tiroir; which rose shadowy in the
middle of the four ways. He hammered on the door.

"But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the change is sudden, is it
not? The King was not wont to be so good to us!"

"The King was not King until now," he answered warmly. "That is what I
am trying to persuade our people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may
sleep without fear; and early in the morning I will be with you. Carlat,
have a care of your mistress until morning, and let Madame lie in her
chamber. She is nervous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God
keep you, and pleasant dreams!"

He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed it; and the door being
open he would have turned away. But she lingered as if unwilling to
enter.

"There is--do you hear it--a stir in _that_ quarter?" she said, pointing
across the Rue St. Honore. "What lies there?"

"Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis nothing. They say, you
know, that Paris never sleeps. Good night, sweet, and a fair awakening!"

She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes' eye. And still she
lingered, keeping him.