"From the Palais Royal."

"What! from the Palais Royal; and with whom were you stopping at the
Palais Royal?"

"The regent."

"You with the regent! and what about?"

"I was a prisoner."

"A prisoner--you!"

"A State prisoner."

"And why were you a prisoner?"

"Because I have saved France."

"Oh, father! are you mad?" cried Bathilde, terrified.

"No, but there has been enough to make me so if I had not had a pretty
strong head."

"Oh, explain, for God's sake!"

"Fancy that there was a conspiracy against the regent."

"Oh, mon Dieu!"

"And that I belonged to it."

"You?"

"Yes, I, without being--that is to say, you know that Prince de
Listhnay?"

"Well!"

"A sham prince, my child, a sham prince!"

"But the copies which you made for him?"

"Manifestoes, proclamations, incendiary papers, a general revolt,
Brittany--Normandy--the States-General--king of Spain--I have discovered
all this."

"You?" cried Bathilde, horrified.

"Yes, I; and the regent has called me the savior of France--me; and is
going to pay me my arrears."

"My father, my father, you talk of conspirators, do you remember the
name of any of them?"

"Firstly, Monsieur the Duc de Maine; fancy that miserable bastard
conspiring against a man like Monseigneur the Regent. Then a Count de
Laval, a Marquis de Pompadour, a Baron de Valef, the Prince de
Cellamare, the Abbe Brigaud, that abominable Abbe Brigaud! Think of my
having copied the list."

"My father," said Bathilde, shuddering with fear, "my father, among all
those names, did you not see the name--the name--of--Chevalier--Raoul
d'Harmental?"

"That I did," cried Buvat, "the Chevalier Raoul d'Harmental--why he is
the head of the company: but the regent knows them all, and this very
evening they will all be arrested, and to-morrow hanged, drawn,
quartered, broken on the wheel."

"Oh, luckless, shameful, that you are!" cried Bathilde, wringing her
hands wildly; "you have killed the man whom I love--but, I swear to you,
by the memory of my mother, that if he dies, I will die also!"

And thinking that she might still be in time to warn D'Harmental of the
danger which threatened him, Bathilde left Buvat confounded, darted to
the door, flew down the staircase, cleared the street at two bounds,
rushed up the stairs, and, breathless, terrified, dying, hurled herself
against the door of D'Harmental's room, which, badly closed by the
chevalier, yielded before her, exposing to