vers.'"

The king bowed his head. "It shall be done as you wish," he answered. "Is
there anything more?" he asked, and Lagardere replied: "This much more:
that your majesty speak nothing of this to any one till midnight
to-morrow."

The king agreed a third time. "Lagardere has my word."

"Then," said Lagardere, "Lagardere will keep his word."

Louis rose to his feet, and signed that the interview was ended. "If he
does, I am his friend for life. But if he fail, let him never enter
France again, for on my word as a gentleman I will have his head."

He saluted Lagardere slightly, and turned and crossed the bridge. A few
paces beyond it he was joined by Chavernay and Bonnivet. The three stood
together for a few moments; then the king and Bonnivet continued their
journey towards Neuilly, leaving Chavernay behind them, lingering in the
shade of the trees.

XVI

SHADOWS

Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "God save your
majesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enter
Paris in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, when
he suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To his
surprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the king
was retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.

Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him?
Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him?
He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at the
side of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing the
bridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay's return had nothing
whatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn of
the Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursue
a pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something of
the pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, a
pastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king's assurance
that he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.

So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the
bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much
enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly,
and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble
from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above