he greatest kindness you can do me is to place
yourself as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint colour, the
flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glittered.

"Right, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for once, "I go! And do you be
of good courage."

He held her hand: an instant, then, moving to the door, he opened it and
listened. They all pressed behind him to hear. A murmur of voices, low
and distant, mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale; apart
from this the house was silent. Tignonville cast a last look at
Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the
stairs and began to descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched
him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched him vanish beyond it;
and still they listened, looking at one another when a board creaked or
the voices below were hushed for a moment.

CHAPTER XVII. THE DUEL.

At the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. The droning Norman
voices of the men on guard issued from an open door a few paces before
him on the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling laughter which
attended it, and the gurgle of applause which followed; and he knew that
at any moment one of the men might step out and discover him. Fortunately
the door of the room with the shattered window was almost within reach of
his hand on the right side of the passage, and he stepped softly to it.
He stood an instant hesitating, his hand on the latch; then, alarmed by a
movement in the guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the door in
a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door behind him. He was safe,
and he had made no noise; but at the table, at supper, with his back to
him and his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Hannibal!

The young man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the
Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on
without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had entered
so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his entrance was taken
for that of a servant. In either case, there was a chance that he might
retire after the same fashion; and he had actually raised the latch, and
was drawing the door to him with infinite precaution, when Tavannes'
voice struck him, as it were, in the face.

"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignonville," he said, without
looking round. "In your cowl you do not feel it, b