About the same time M. des Graves was walking slowly homewards, his head and shoulders bent with the weight of care he carried. He was horribly anxious. Two days ago the newspaper had contained a somewhat veiled and evidently delayed account of the discovery of a Royalist conspiracy, followed by a number of arrests. There were no names given, and the Marquise, if she had even seen the announcement, had mercifully not connected it with Louis’ political escapade nor, consequently, with Gilbert’s errand. But the priest had every word of it by heart. Moreover, he knew what Madame de Château-Foix did not know—that Gilbert’s name had once figured, by accident or design, on the list of conspirators. For two days he had kept silence, but he was beginning to feel that he could bear the suspense no longer, that it was not right to let slip any more time in waiting for news. But what could he do? He was himself a proscribed man. “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord,” he murmured, “he will not be afraid of any evil tidings.” No, not for himself, perhaps, but when disaster threatened another, how hard to say that! . . . And all the way up the avenue, where the shadow of the elm trunks lay long and barrier-like in the setting sun, he thought of the two boys who used to run to meet him there, and to escort him on his way with laughter. Of these he had perhaps helped to send the better-loved to his death. The Marquise was not on the terrace, as he had somehow expected. He went slowly up the steps to the salon window, which was open. The room was empty, but from behind the folding-doors which led into the hall came the sound of voices, a laugh which rang impossible in his ears, and a smothered sob. M. des Graves hurriedly pushed open the doors. In the hall, with his back to him, stood a dusty and travel-stained figure on whose breast Madame de Château-Foix was laughing and crying. Another, not at once recognisable as Louis, in an exceedingly old coat drawn all awry over an invisible left arm, leant rather wearily against the tall cabinet which enshrined the penultimate Marquis’ collection of Chinese porcelain. Gilbert turned his head, and the Vicomte sprang forward. * * * * * * The most poignant moments of life are always liable to be impinged upon by the commonplace. Perhaps if the travellers had not been so palpably tired and dirty the scene might have prolonged itself, but the Marquise, drying her eyes, soon disengaged herself from her son’s arms, and declared that she would ask no questions until the two were rested and fed. Neither the Marquis nor Louis demurred at this fiat; only the latter turned for a moment with his foot on the bottom stair. “You didn’t expect us at all—ever!” he whispered to the priest. “I saw that you didn’t.”