That, of course, was Monsieur de Commines' doing. He had said, Give me seven days; but he took no more than one, and added to the favour of haste the grace of coming himself to tell me of his success.

I had just returned from a fruitless enquiry at Mademoiselle's lodgings when the landlord met me at the door. To see his change of countenance was a vision of the contemptible in human nature.

"Monsieur is a friend of Monseigneur the Prince de Talmont and I did not know it!" he said plaintively, his hands lightly crossed upon the servile hinge below his chest. "His Excellency is within asking for your Lordship. Ah! Monsieur, had I but known! What a supper I could have served, what a room I could have prepared——"

"And what a bill would have followed! Be easy, a man can only sleep on one bed at a time. Where is Monsieur de Commines?"

"Monsieur le Prince does me the honour to wait in the garden. He has already given orders——"

But Martin, who had heard my voice, pushed him aside.

"Monsieur Gaspard," he cried ruefully, "tell him you cannot have it so. He says the permit is for you only and that I must bide here. I told him, No! Where you went, I went. But he laughed at me, and said every babe must leave its nurse and walk alone some day, and that your time had come."

As he talked we had walked on into the garden that lay to the side and back of the inn, a pleasant place of prune trees well set with young fruit; pinks and roses grew underneath the boughs, and after rain the air was heavy with the sweets of lavender. To these thyme and early gillyflowers added their scent, making the morning air a king's luxury with perfume. Here Monsieur de Commines was waiting for me, a great bunch of newly-gathered flowers in his hands.

Catching Martin's last words he looked up.

"Fie!" said he frowning, though a twinkle in his eyes belied the gravity of the rebuke; "a soldier and preaching cowardice?"

"No coward for myself, Monseigneur, and I'll prove it to you," answered Martin sturdily. "If that fox in Plessis must gnaw his bone, then let him gnaw me, not Monsieur Gaspard."

The spasm of fear that swept across Monsieur de Commines' face startled me, so sudden was it, so abject, so unlike the man who had within four days faced a howling mob unflinchingly, with no more than a table's breadth between. His cheeks had gone white even in the sunlight, and the flowers fell from his hands as if the fingers had no longer strength to hold them.

"Christ's life! man! hold your fool's tongue!" he screamed in a harsh high-pitched voice more like a shrewish woman's than a man's; "who are you to take the King's majesty into your mouth and mangle it? Would you ruin your master? Would you ruin me? Would you hang yourself and that gaping idiot behind you there on Tristan's gallows? By the splendour of God! but I've a mind to swing the two of you! You that dared speak, and him that he dared listen and not cry out upon you! Eh, master host, eh?"

"But Monseigneur," cried the poor shaking wretch, "I heard nothing, I—I—I swear I heard nothing."

"Nothing at all? You are sure, eh? You are sure?"

"Sure, Monseigneur," he repeated in an agony; "do you think I would hear our gracious King miscalled a—a—sneaking beast, and not resent it? But how could I hear when there was nothing said?"

"Then go bid them saddle the horses; but remember this, if I hear you repeat what that fool never said, then——"

"Never, Monseigneur, never; have no fear."

"Fear? I? Use civiller language, rascal; what have I to do with fear? Do as thou'rt bid, and thou of the loose tongue, finish thy master's packing, and make haste."

Too cowed to do more than look piteously at me, Martin turned away to obey, and as the pair went about their business, Monsieur de Commines drew the deep breath of a man who for one terrible minute has hung by a single handsgrip above a gulf of death.

"I think I played my part," said he, forcing a smile. "Martin has learned his lesson, and the other—yes, for his own sake the other will be silent. But one thing is sure, even had the permit been for two, only one would have used it."

Played a part! My heart was still beating double tides from the sick fear I had seen in his face, and he called it playing a part! No warning, whether of direct words or tongueless flesh hooks with fragments of freshly-used dangling rope could urge discretion in the affairs of His Most Christian Majesty with half the emphasis of that agony of terror. If the King's friend, who tended him by day, and slept at his feet by night, had such cause for circumspection, how warily must he walk who came to urge the King to fling aside a soiled tool still keen for the royal service?

Naturally I accepted Monsieur de Commines' half apologetic explanation without comment, but when I would have asked about the progress of my own affairs he motioned me to silence.

"When we are on our road," he said curtly. But when Martin brought out Ninus saddled, as well as Roland and the pack-horse, his angry mood again burst constraint. "What fresh foolery is this? Did I not tell you the permit was for one only?"

"Yes, Monseigneur," answered Martin humbly, "but with your leave it is my duty to see Monsieur Gaspard as far as—as—as maybe."

De Commines' face cleared.

"Right, my friend! Love and duty are the pillars of the world; happy is the man who holds by them. Thou shalt see thy Master Gaspard as far as—as maybe. Ride thou behind with Benoit and my fellows and tell them to keep their distance; they know what that means. We will travel at a foot's pace," he added to me; "for there is much to be said, and the way is short."

"The first thing," he went on, as, side by side, we wound our way through the narrow streets, "is that you must change your name. Hellewyl smacks of Flanders, and the King hates—Good-day, my lord; we are all jealous of you at court. This marriage of the Dauphin will put you gentlemen of Flanders in such high favour that we poor ancient servants of the King will be forgotten in the cold—God grant he thinks so! As I was saying, we must drop the Hellewyl and henceforth be Monsieur Gaspard de Helville. In the King's present health and peevish mood—Yes, Monsieur le Conseiller, I rejoice to say His Majesty is in excellent health and spirits, excellent, excellent, but I do not think he receives to-day—with the King in his present mood it would be unwise to cross his prejudice. After all, a name is but a little thing, and the permit is for Monsieur de Helville. Next grasp this; the King is never ailing, except under the breath, you understand? To you I will tell the truth. When he sleeps we do not know that he will wake again, and when he wakes we do not know but that his next sleep will be eternal. He eats—as I have just said to Monsieur Chasse, excellent! You should have seen him break his fast this morning! I am a fair trencherman, but His Majesty surpasses me in that as in all thing............