That Bonne failed to read the dark scroll of her sister's thoughts need not surprise us; since apart from the tie of blood the two women had nothing in common. But that she failed also to interpret Roger's inaction; that, blaming herself for an acquiescence which love made inevitable, she did not spare him, whom love should have moved in the opposite direction--this was more remarkable. For a closer bond never united brother and sister. But misery is a grand engrosser. She had her lover in her thoughts, the poor girl whom she sacrificed on her mind; and she left the Duke's quarters without that last look at her brother which might have enlightened her.

Had she questioned him he had discovered his mind. She did not, and she had barely passed from sight before he was outside and had got a fresh horse saddled. One thing only it was prevented his leaving the camp in advance of the Countess, whose people were not ready. His foot was raised to the stirrup when he bethought him of this thing. He left the horse in charge of a trooper and hurried back to the Duke's quarters, found him alone and put his question.

"You made a man fight the other night against his will," he said, his head high. "Tell me, my lord, how I can do the same thing."

The Duke stared, then laughed. "Is it that you want?" he answered. "Tell me first whom it is you would fight, my lad?"

"The Captain of Vlaye."

"Ah?"

"You said a while ago," Roger continued, his eyes sparkling, "that you would presently make her a widow. Better a widow before she is wed, I say!"

The Duke smiled whimsically. "Sits the wind in that quarter?" he answered. "You have no mind to see her wed at all, my lad? That is it, is it? I had some notion of it."

"Tell me how I can make him fight," Roger replied, sticking to his question and refusing even to blush.

"Tell me how I can get the moon!" Joyeuse answered, but not unkindly. "Why should he risk his life to rid himself of you, who are no drawback to him? Tell me that! Or why should he surrender the advantage of his strong place and his four hundred spears to enter the lists with a man who is naught to him?"

"Because if he does not I will kill him where I find him!" Roger replied with passion. And the mode of the day, which was not nice in the punctilios of the duel, and forgave the most irregular assault if it were successful, which cast small blame on Guise for the murder of St. Pol, or on Montsoreau for the murder of Bussy, justified the threat. "I will kill him!" he repeated. "Fair or foul, light or dark----"

"He shall not wed her!" the Duke cried in a mocking tone and with an extravagant gesture. But in truth the raillery was on the surface only. The lad's spirit touched the corresponding note in his own nature. None the less he shook his head. "Brave words, brave words, young man," he continued; "but you are not Vitaux, who counted his life for nothing, and whose sword was a terror to all."

"But if I count my life for nothing?"

"Ay, if! If!"

"And why should I not?" Roger retorted, his soul rising to his lips. "Tell me, my lord, why should I count it for more? What am I, the son of a poor gentleman, misshapen, rough, untutored, that I should hold my life dear? That I should spare it, and save it, as a thing so valuable? What have I in prospect of all the things other men look to? Glory? See me! Fine I should be," with a bitter laugh covering tears, "in a triumph, or marching up the aisle to a Te Deum! Court favour? Ay, I might be the dwarf in a masque or the fool in motley! Naught besides! Naught besides, my lord! And for love?" He laughed still more bitterly. "I tell you my own father winces when he sees me! My own sister and my own brother--well, they are blind perhaps. They, they only, and old Solomon, and the woman who nursed me and dropped me--see in me a man like other men. Leave them out, and, as I live, until this man came----"

"Des Ageaux?"

"Des Ageaux--until he came and spoke gently to me and said, 'do this, and do that, and you shall be as Gourdon or as Guesclin!'--even he could not promise me love--as I live, till then no man pitied me or gave me hope! And shall I let him die to save my stunted life?"

"But it is not the saving him that is in question," the Duke replied gently, and with respect in his tone. He was honestly moved by this unveiling of poor Roger's thoughts. "She saved him."

"And I'll save her," Roger replied with fervour. "I will save her though I die a hundred deaths. For she, too----"

He paused. The Duke looked at him, a spice of humour mingling with his sympathy. "She, too, sees in you a man like other men," he said, "I suppose?"

"She pitied me," Roger answered. "No more; she pitied me, my lord! What more could she do, being what she is? And I being what I am?" His chin sank on his breast.

The Duke nodded kindly. "May-be," he said. "Less likely things have happened." And then, "But what will you do?" he asked.

"Go with her and see him, take him aside, and if he will fight me, well! And if he will not, I will strike him down where he stands!"

"But that will not save des Ageaux."

"No?"

"No! On the contrary, it will be he," Joyeuse retorted somewhat grimly, "who will pay for it. Do you not see that?"

"Then I will wait," Roger replied, "until he is released."

"And then," the Duke asked, still opposing, though the man and the plan were alike after his own heart, "what of the Countess? M. de Vlaye dead, who will protect her? His men----"

"They would not dare!" Roger cried, trembling. "They would not dare!"

"Well, perhaps not," the Duke answered, after a moment's thought. "Perhaps not. Probably his lieutenant would protect her, for his own sake. And des Ageaux free would be worth two hundred men to us. Not that, if I were well, he would be in question. But I am but half a man, and we need him!"

"You shall have him," Roger answered, his eyes glittering. "Have no doubt of it! But advise me, my lord. Were it better I escorted her to the gate and sought entrance later, after he had released des Ageaux? Or that I kept myself close until the time came?"

"The time? For what?"

The speaker was the Abbess. Unseen by the two men, she had that moment glided across the threshold. The pallor of her features and the brightness of her eyes were such as to strike both; but differently. To the Duke these results of a night passed in vivid emotions, and of a morning that had crowned her schemes with mockery, only brought her into nearer keeping with the dress she wore--only enhanced her charms. To her brother, on the other hand, who now hated Vlaye with a tenfold hatred, they were grounds for suspicion--he knew not why. But not even he came nearer to guessing the truth. Not even he dreamt that behind that mask were passions at work which, had they discovered them, would have cast the Duke into a stupor deeper than any into which his own mad freaks had ever flung a wondering world. As it was, the Duke's eyes saw only the perfection of womankind; the lily of the garden, drooping, pale, under the woes of her frailer sisters. Of the jealousy with which she contemplated the surrender of her rival to her lover's power, much less of the step which that surrender was pressing upon her, he caught no glimpse.

"The time for what?" the Duke repeated, with looks courteous to the point of reverence. "Ah--pardon, my sister, but we cannot take you into our counsel. Men must sometimes do things it is not for saints to know or women to witness."

"Saints!" The involuntary irony of her tone must have penetrated ears less dulled by prejudgment. "Saints!" and then, "I am no saint, my lord," she said modestly.

"Still," he answered, "it were better you did not know, mademoiselle. It is but a plan by which we think it possible that we may yet get the better of M. de Vlaye and save the child before--before, in fact----"

"Ay?" the Abbess said, a flicker of pain in her eyes. "Before--I understand."

"Before it be too late."

"Yes. And how?"

The Duke shook his head with a smile meant to propitiate. "How?" he repeated. "That--pardon me--that is the point upon which--we would fain be silent."

"Yet you must not be silent," she replied. "You must tell me." And pale, almost stern, she looked from one to the other, dominating them. "You must tell me," she repeated. "Or perhaps," fixing Roger with a glance keen as steel, "I know already. You would save her by killing him. It is of that you are thinking. It is for that your horse is waiting saddled by the gate. You would ride after her, and gain access to him--and----"

"She has not started?" Roger exclaimed.

"She started ten minutes ago," the Abbess answered coldly. "Nay, stay!" For Roger was making for the door. "Stay, boy! Do you hear?"

"I cannot stay!"

"If you do not stay you will repent it all your life!" the Abbess made answer in a voice that shook even his resolution. "And she all hers! Ha! that stays you?" with a gleam of passion she could not restrain. "I thought it would. Now, if you will listen, I have something to say that will put another complexion on this."

They gazed expectant, but she did not at once continue. She stood reflecting deeply; while each of her listeners regarded her after his knowledge of her; Roger sullenly and with suspicion, doubting what she would be at, the Duke in admiration, expecting that with which gentle wisdom might inspire her.

Secretly she was heart-sick, and the sigh which she could not restrain declared it. But at last, "There is no need of violence," she said wearily. "No," addressing Roger, who had raised his hand in remonstrance, "hear me out before you interrupt me. How will the loss of a minute harm you? Or of five or ten? I repeat, there is no need of violence. Heaven knows there has been enough! We must go another way to work to release her. It is my turn now."

"I would rather trust myself," Roger muttered; but so low that the words, frank to rudeness, did not reach Joyeuse's ears.

"Yet you must trust me," she answered. "Do so, trus............