Comte," the minister answered. He spoke quietly,
but there was a strange light in his face as he turned to go with her.

None the less he was silent until Madame's lagging feet--for all her
interest in the expedition was gone--had borne her a hundred paces from
the company. Then--

"Who knoweth our thoughts and forerunneth all our desires," he murmured.
And when she turned to him, astonished, "Madame," he continued, "I have
prayed, ah, how I have prayed, for this opportunity of speaking to you!
And it has come. I would it had come this morning, but it has come. Do
not start or look round; many eyes are on us, and, alas! I have that to
say to you which it will move you to hear, and that to ask of you which
it must task your courage to perform."

She began to tremble, and stood looking up the green slope to the broken
grey wall which crowned its summit.

"What is it?" she whispered, commanding herself with an effort. "What is
it? If it have aught to do with M. Tignonville--"

"It has not!"

In her surprise--for although she had put the question she had felt no
doubt of the answer--she started and turned to him.

"It has not?" she exclaimed almost incredulously.

"No."

"Then what is it, Monsieur?" she replied, a little haughtily. "What can
there be that should move me so?"

"Life or death, Madame," he answered solemnly. "Nay, more; for since
Providence has given me this chance of speaking to you, a thing of which
I despaired, I know that the burden is laid on us, and that it is guilt
or it is innocence, according as we refuse the burden or bear it."

"What is it, then?" she cried impatiently. "What is it?"

"I tried to speak to you this morning."

"Was it you, then, whom Madame St. Lo saw stalking me before dinner?

"It was."

She clasped her hands and heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God,
Monsieur!" she replied. "You have lifted a weight from me. I fear
nothing in comparison of that. Nothing!"

"Alas!" he answered sombrely, "there is much to fear, for others if not
for ourselves! Do you know what that is which M. de Tavannes bears
always in his belt? What it is he carries with such care? What it was
he handed to you to keep while he bathed to-day?"

"Letters from the King."

"Yes, but the import of those letters?"

"No."

"And yet, should they be written in letters of blood!" the minister
exclaimed, his face kindling. "They should scorch the hands that hold
them and blister the