And now I come to what has saddened all my life since, and still must sadden it.

In Poictiers, it will be remembered, much was to happen. There Mademoiselle de Narbonne was to leave me behind in hiding while she rode on to Plessis to gain the King's ear through Philip de Commines. There, too, I was to forestall her useless sacrifice and, in a triple sense, disappear into the dark, into the night, into her scorn and contempt, into the valley of the shadow, from which none ride out at the hither end.

And yet none of these things came to pass. We reckoned without the King's energy of will to strike, and the swiftness of his wrath.

Once only she referred to the part she proposed that I should play. It was on the morning of that last Thursday in August, and the great silence of the deep heart of the wood through which we rode had fallen upon us.

"Father Paulus has told you that we part at Poictiers?" she said, looking straight forward between her horse's twitching ears.

"Yes; it is all arranged between us."

Then silence fell again, but she gave her reins a little impatient shake as if she asked in her heart what manner of man was this who had no word of gratitude or even of plain thanks to offer her. But it was better so; the graceless boor would easier seem the lying scoundrel.

"What will you do, Monsieur, while you are waiting for news?" she went on at last.

"Rather let us ask, what will you do? How, for instance, do you propose to pass the gates of Plessis?"

"I have thought of that; by the King's signet which you hold."

"The King's signet?"

"Yes; when Lesellè refused you admission to the presence the afternoon you left Plessis, Monsieur de Commines passed you the King's ring, and in the haste that followed it was overlooked. You have it still?"

"Mademoiselle," I cried, shaken out of my enforced coldness, "you astonish me. I had forgotten the King's ring."

"You had less need to remember than I," she answered, glancing at me for the first time. "When those we—we—esteem are in danger—but this is no danger, Monsieur? All will go well, will it not?"

There was a little catch in her throat as she ended, and my own was not free from a significant parchedness as I replied, giving the lie as light an appearance of careless truth as I could—"Surely not; Monsieur de Commines will protect you."

"I was not thinking of myself," said she, "but for fear the ring should be forgotten in to-morrow's haste, as it was when you left Plessis, you had better give it to me now."

For a moment I hesitated. Since she was to remain behind in Poictiers she required no token to open the gates of Plessis. But, on the other hand, neither did I! No fear but by day or by night the drawbridge would swing down that the traitor Gaspard Hellewyl might pass over! Then a new thought decided me, and drawing the signet from the inner pocket where it had lain forgotten, I handed it to her. In the doubtful days to come, the days that lay between Poictiers and Navarre upon her return journey, the King's ring boldly used might hold her safe. There was comfort in that.

"See how you make all smooth for me," said she, smiling up at me as she took the ring; and partly because she was Suzanne de Narbonne and I nothing better than Gaspard Hellewyl, but partly also because of the lie she was so shortly to be told, I dared not answer her back, dared not say, Would God I could make all smooth till the mound of the grave makes all rough for the one left behind.

At the Coq Rouge, the inn of the King's choosing, we parted without formality. Some trivial excuse appeared reason enough, but the truth was I did not dare trust myself to drift into a farewell that was for her a Good-night until the morrow, but for me until the great morrow of the Eternal dawn. I had my letter to write, and how, having the one moment kissed her hand, could I the next coldly set myself down a liar and a scoundrel?

But an hour passed, and the letter was still unwritten. Then, as I tore up my sixth draft, the door opened without a knock, and Martin slipped quietly in.

"Mademoiselle wants you, and I think there is trouble," he said in a whisper.

"Mademoiselle de Narbonne?"

"Mademoiselle Suzanne."

"It is all one."

"Maybe, but she bade me say Mademoiselle Suzanne sent me; Mademoiselle Suzanne, I was to make no mistake about that."

"Where is she, and why do you think there is trouble?" For the moment the only trouble I feared was that I would forget myself, and being a lover, fail to play the man.

"In Father Paul's room. There is a woman with her, and nine times in ten when trouble comes, it comes by way of a woman."

"Tell me what you know, but quickly, for Mademoiselle is waiting."

"Let her wait," he grumbled; "we waited long enough at Morsigny, and for no good. That is always the way, let a woman come, and poof! a man's love of a lifetime is forgotten. All right, Monsieur Gaspard, I'll go on, but you'll allow it's hard to be put aside for a stranger. As I was sitting in the court below, one of the house servants came to me saying there was a woman wanting the lady who travelled with us. Naturally I came first to tell you, the woman following all smothered in a hooded cloak, though the air outside is like a furnace. But as I turned to the left, the fool of a man cried out that Madame's room was to the right, and what could I do but take her there? Mademoiselle came at my knock, and I think she must have lain down in her clothes, for though she was fully dressed, her hair was all tumbled about her shoulders. But she had not rested much, her face was so black and white, and her eyes like the eyes of a fever."

"I know all that, get to the end," I said harshly. It cut me to the heart, angering me almost beyond bearing, to hear him catalogue her weariness so bluntly, and know how bitterly I must still make her suffer.

"You said, Tell all you know," he answered. "But as to the end, the end was that, telling me to stand aside, she spoke a minute or two to the woman, shrinking from her first, then catching her in her arms as if she was her sister, and a bouncing armful she is—she'd make two of Mademoiselle. She took her to Father Paul's room, which was empty, and bade me tell you that Mademoiselle Suzanne wanted you. 'Remember,' said she, 'remember to say Mademoiselle Suzanne wants him.'"

"Come, then, but wait outside the door. If Father Paul should return, tell him what you have told me, but let no one else in."

The room was long and narrow. In three of the corners there were beds, and in the fourth a bench; a table carrying a lighted lamp stood in the centre. At the further end a window overlooked the roof of an outhouse with a walled lane beyond. The casement was open, and through it came the clear sound of voices from the lane's-folk taking the air in the slowly cooling August heat. The two women were by the table, Mademoiselle de Narbonne at its side and facing the door, her companion at the end nearest the window, which she fronted. The hood of her cloak hung back upon her shoulders, and as I closed the door she turned.

"Brigitta!"

"Brigitta, M'sieu," and with a giggling laugh she dipped an awkward curtsey. Then I knew why I had hated to see Mademoiselle so salute me in the old days of her masquerade at Morsigny; it seemed to lower her to the level of this Flanders peasant.

From Brigitta I looked with anxious apprehension to Mademoiselle de Narbonne, but to my relief she was smiling through a twinkle of tears, and the look of heavy care which had oppressed her these ten days was entirely lifted.

"Brigitta! I thought you were in Plessis?"

"So I was, Monsieur Gaspard, but four days ago the King gave me to Jan Meert and sent us here."

"To Jan Meert?"

"Oh, not for the first time!" said she, tossing her head, but though it was to me she spoke her eyes were on Mademoiselle's face as if, being a woman, she feared the woman's judgment rather than the man's, "and I'm not ashamed either. What do we dogs of peasants who love one another need with a priest?"

"I rated you higher than that," said I.

"I know you did, Monsieur Gaspard," and the defiance in her eyes softened. "It was the one thing I loved in you, that, and that you were a gentleman who could make me mistress of Solignac, but I thought you a fool all the time. Then Jan Meert came and burnt Solignac for my sake, and that settled it. I'm no owl to roost on charred sticks, even to be called Madame."

"Jan Meert burnt Solignac for your sake?"

Again she laughed, but this time with a fuller heartiness, as if she were on surer ground and better pleased with herself.

"It's not every woman has her man do such a thing for her."

"He did more than that, he killed Babette?"

"Babette was a cat with claws in her tongue, many a time they've scratched me to the bone. Babette's no loss. But I let no harm come to you, Monsieur Gaspard. Remember how I lured you to me that day and kept you safe; you owe me thanks for that."

"Then you knew?"

"Not for certain, though I better than guessed. But you had always treated me en gentilhomme, and so——"

"Have we time for all this?" broke in Mademoiselle, speaking for the first time. "Tell him why Jan Meert is in Plessis."

"There is no need," answered I, remembering the King's promise that, fail or succeed, I should meet the man who had made me homeless. It was truly a genially humoursome way of flinging his old tools to the rubbish heap. "He is there by the grace of God and Saint Louis of Plessis! What I do not understand is why she is here."

"That you may escape! Do you not see?" cried Mademoiselle, half laughing, half in sobs, "Do you not see that there is no need for me to go to Plessis at all now she is safe?"

"Why," said Brigitta, "was it to save me—me, old Pieter the herdsman's dau............