last night; in a swoon of exhaustion, wounded in the shoulder, and with
a sprained foot. It was my daughter who gave the alarm and called us
to your assistance. You were lying under her widow." Then, seeing the
growing wonder in my eyes and misconstruing it into alarm: "Nay, have no
fear, monsieur," he cried. "You were very well advised in coming to us.
You have fallen among friends. We are Orleanists too,--at Lavedan, for
all that I was not in the fight at Castelnaudary. That was no fault of
mine. His Grace's messenger reached me overlate, and for all that I set
out with a company of my men, I put back when I had reached Lautrec upon
hearing that already a decisive battle had been fought and that our side
had suffered a crushing defeat." He uttered a weary sigh.

"God help us, monsieur! Monseigneur de Richelieu is likely to have his
way with us. But let that be for the present. You are here, and you are
safe. As yet no suspicion rests on Lavedan. I was, as I have said, too
late for the fight, and so I came quietly back to save my skin, that
I might serve the Cause in whatever other way might offer still. In
sheltering you I am serving Gaston d'Orleans, and, that I may continue
so to do, I pray that suspicion may continue to ignore me. If they were
to learn of it at Toulouse or of how with money and in other ways I have
helped this rebellion--I make no doubt that my head would be the forfeit
I should be asked to pay."

I was aghast at the freedom of treasonable speech with which this very
debonnaire gentleman ventured to address an utter stranger.

"But tell me, Monsieur de Lesperon," resumed my host, "how is it with
you?"

I started in fresh astonishment.

"How--how do you know that I am Lesperon?" I asked.

"Ma foi!" he laughed, "do you imagine I had spoken so unreservedly to a
man of whom I knew nothing? Think better of me, monsieur, I beseech
you. I found these letters in your pocket last night, and their
superscription gave me your identity. Your name is well known to me," he
added. "My friend Monsieur de Marsac has often spoken of you and of your
devotion to the Cause, and it affords me no little satisfaction to be of
some service to one whom by repute I have already learned to esteem."

I lay back on my pillows, and I groaned. Here was a predicament!
Mistaking me for that miserable rebel I had succoured at Mirepoix, and
whose letters I bore upon me that I might restore them to some one whose
name he had f