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 things—eats nothing, only sucks the juice of an orange or two, so that we can almost see his bones sharpen daily. no man dares cross him—ah, my lord! you ride our way? to plessis no doubt? then a friendly word in your ear; the king was asking for you this morning, and you know his impatience is not always—h'm! i thought that would put spurs to his horse and so rid us of his company. it is true, too, that his majesty did ask for 'that fool, de baux,' but it was to forbid him the gate! it was no business of mine to tell him unpalatable news. through life i have made it my rule to serve not only my friends but my enemies. courtesy is a seed that bears fruit in all soils, even the roughest and least kindly. but there are so many interruptions i had better wait till we are beyond the walls."

to which i cordially agreed, so bewildering were the diplomatic contradictions which a plain man would have called blunt lies.

so, for the remainder of our ride through the city he bowed, smiled, saluted, talked; and was grave, gay, suave, stern, cordial, cold, as the person and the occasion demanded. there is nothing like being a courtier with a reputation for favour to win a man acquaintances, friends i dare not call them, for one half are ready to turn upon him for envy, and the other half are thinking their hardest how they can climb upon his back to their own advantage.

but once clear of the gate the throng slackened, and he took up his parable as if there had been no break in the thread.

"no! no man dares cross him. that does not mean there is need to cross him, by the spirit of god! no! the king may be frail in body, but his brain burns as with fire, and when his thought blazes out in offence upon a man it consumes him. i tell you that, monsieur de helville, lest it should flash out at you and shrivel you and your petty vengeance out of the world. in your twenty-four hours in tours rumour must have whispered many things in your ears; whispered, i say, since to speak outright is to court an outside lodgings at the chateau tristan, for all these rumours buzz round and round the king. the king is half dead; the king was never more alive; the king is crazed; the king's policy is keener witted than ever; the dauphin goes in terror of his father; the king goes in terror of the dauphin; these, and many more, and all of them true by turns, for he is compounded of contradictions. for instance, so coward is he that no man dares say death! or the grave! in his presence, and yet, when a few months back death jogged his elbow and sent him staggering to the grave's mouth, the king never winced, but thrust out his chin, and stared the terror in the face, unafraid."

"but, monseigneur, how can i, a stranger, and no courtier, walk safely through these pitfalls?"

"for seven days you will share my quarters; make the most of your chances. the king will then put you to service, god knows what, for he has strange whims at times, and again i say, make the most of what he offers. your time in plessis will be short. it is his wisdom to change his servants often lest they should learn too much and be dangerous. as i have told you, he spends half his days making and breaking men's fortunes; only what the king finally sends you to do, do: or else tear up the permit now and ride back, not to tours, but to your charnel house of solignac, lest he reach after you. there stands plessis!" he added abruptly.

drawing rein, we sat in silence and as we waited martin slowly drew up with us. it was our first view of the—what shall i call it? chateau? palace? prison? fortress? it was all four in one, or something of all four. but perhaps martin's summing up fitted the case best.

"god have mercy upon us!" he said under his breath; "it's a rat trap!"

"there is no cat in europe with claws strong enough to scratch it open," answered monsieur de commines; this time we were alone, and he had no rebuke for martin's freedom of speech. "no, nor wolf either! look at its strength. first there is the iron paling set on the near bank of the fosse; next, the fosse is twenty feet deep and is no mere ditch, but a lake for breadth; then comes the outermost wall, bristling, as you see, with four-pointed hooks that would rip a man's flesh to the bone and hang him up by joints like a sheep in a butcher's shop. these two towers flank the gateway. it faces the river, and can only be approached by that zig-zag path which is set on every side by springes, traps and gins cunningly hidden. may the world to come show mercy to the man they grip, for in this life there is no longer hope for him! within that outer wall there is a second which dominates the first and is also bounded by a moat; within that again there is a third yet higher and again girded by water. you see them there, terraced, one, two, three; and if the first gate were forced—a thing hard to believe—the second stands not opposite but aside, and the third yet further aside, so that to reach the core, where the king lies, there must be a transverse straggle along the bank under fire both back and front, then the fosse to cross and another gate to force. that grim black shaft rising from the centre is the donjon; strength within strength, defence defending defence, and these four iron-sheeted towers crown and govern all. monsieur de helville, your late master, saw war, and you with him, master martin, did either of you ever see such a king's house before, or was there ever such seen since the world began?"

"a rat trap," repeated martin, "and god have mercy on——"

"monsieur gaspard!" said monsieur de commines, and rode on laughing. but not for long. while we were still more than a bowshot from the outer walls he turned to martin. "now, friend, get back to the cross of saint martin, and wait there in patience. do not go far from the inn door; your master may need you any hour by day or by night. god knows when! it is all as the king wills, and remember this, curiosity is a fatal vice at plessis. if you approach too near the castle those fellows you see on the walls will shoot you like a mad dog first, and enquire why afterwards, and so the saints keep you!"

dropping the reins on ninus' neck, martin jumped to the ground, and went on his knee in the dust.

"the lord, he knows, monsieur gaspard, that the leaving you is none of my doing," he said between the mumbles of his mouth upon my hand. "if i'd ha' thought it would come to this then the lord again he knows i'd ha' sooner faced jan meert and his twenty devils and so never have been here to taste the bitterness. there were but three of us, monsieur gaspard; babette is gone, now you will go, and i only shall be left, a poor, miserable, dried skin of a man that—that—would give his life to go first," and he broke down, weeping.

laughing, but in no laughing mood, i leaned aside, and tried to pull him to his feet. but he would not move, and when at last i drew my hand away—for monseigneur was waiting for me—its back was wet with his tears. nor, so long as we were in sight, did he rise from his knee.

"ah!" said monseigneur, as we rode on, "master martin has a heart in him for all his years, and is not ashamed to show it. i fear he would never make a courtier, he has not learned to forget love, and be ungrateful."