I looked then, and saw that he had given me a knot of velvet precisely similar is shape, size, and material to that well-remembered one which had aided me so opportunely in my search for mademoiselle. This differed from that a little in colour, but in nothing else, the fashion of the bow being the same, and one lappet hearing the initials ‘C. d. l. V.,’ while the other had the words, ‘A moi.’ I gazed at it in wonder. ‘But, Simon,’ I said, ‘what does it mean? Where did you get it?’ ‘Where should I get it?’ he answered jealously. Then, seeming to recollect himself, he changed his tone. ‘A woman gave it to me in the street,’ he said. I asked him what woman. ‘How should I know?’ he answered, his eyes gleaming with anger. ‘It was a woman in a mask.’ ‘Was it Fanchette?’ I said sternly. ‘It might have been. I do not know,’ he responded. I concluded at first that mademoiselle and her escort had arrived in the outskirts of the city, and that Maignan had justified his reputation for discretion by sending in to learn from me whether the way was clear before he entered. In this notion I was partly confirmed and partly shaken by the accompanying message; which Simon, from whom every scrap of information had to be dragged as blood from a stone, presently delivered. ‘You are to meet the sender half an hour after sunset to-morrow evening,’ he said, ‘on the Parvis at the north-east corner of the cathedral.’ ‘To-morrow evening?’ ‘Yes, when else?’ the lad answered ungraciously. ‘I said to-morrow evening.’ I thought this strange. I could understand why Maignan should prefer to keep his charge outside the walls until he heard from me, but not why he should postpone a meeting so long. The message, too, seemed unnecessarily meagre, and I began to think Simon was still withholding something. ‘Was that all?’ I asked him. ‘Yes, all,’ he answered, ‘except--’ ‘Except what?’ I said sternly. ‘Except that the woman showed me the gold token Mademoiselle de la Vire used to carry,’ he answered reluctantly, ‘and said, if you wanted further assurance that would satisfy you.’ ‘Did you see the coin?’ I cried eagerly. ‘To be sure,’ he answered. ‘Then, mon dieu!’ I retorted, ‘either you are deceiving me, or the woman you saw deceived you. For mademoiselle has not got the token! I have it here, in my possession! Now, do you still say you saw it, man?’ ‘I saw one like it,’ he answered, trembling, his face damp. ‘That I will swear. And the woman told me what I have told you. And no more.’ ‘Then it is clear,’ I answered, ‘that mademoiselle has nothing to do with this, and is doubtless many a league away. This is one of M. de Bruhl’s tricks. Fresnoy gave him the token he stole from me. And I told him the story of the velvet knot myself. This is a trap; and had I fallen into it, and gone to the Parvis to-morrow evening, I had never kept another assignation, my lad.’