“I have just had very bad news,” he said, and Louis noticed then that he looked really as if he had had a shock. And he knew, somehow, in an instant that the news had no direct personal bearing. For the moment the remembrance of their relations left him. “It is not . . . the Queen?” “Not yet,” said his cousin grimly. He came to the fire. “It is La Rouërie—he is dead—has been dead a month.” And in spite of his iron self-command his voice shook a little. “Dead!” repeated Louis, stupefied. “La Rouërie! How? Killed?” “Yes,” answered the Marquis, “by the news of the King’s death. It seems that in the second week in January he came by night, in disguise, to the château of La Guyomarais, near Lamballe. There he fell ill; he got worse. Then came the fatal news, which M. de la Guyomarais and his family succeeded in keeping from him for some days, but which in the end he discovered. It threw him into a raging fever, of which he died, on the 30th of January, without recovering consciousness. They buried him secretly in the plantation.” Louis stared at him and said nothing. “There is almost worse to follow,” continued Gilbert, glancing at the letter in his hand. “The man whom he most trusted had been betraying him for months to Danton—knew all about his plans. He set the authorities on the alert after La Rouërie’s disappearance; a few days ago they surrounded the château and questioned the La Guyomarais and their dependents. As old Madame de la Guyomarais was denying any knowledge of the fugitive, La Rouërie’s head, five-and-twenty days buried, came rolling through the window to her feet. . . . They have nearly all been taken off to the prisons of Rennes. And in that holocaust ends the Marquis de la Rouërie and his plans.” He sank down uninvited into a chair—Louis was still standing—and began mechanically pleating the letter into smaller and smaller folds. They were both of them thinking of their first meeting with a personality so vivid that it seemed impossible it should have been extinguished, unknown to them, a month ago. “No, not of his plans, surely,” said Louis at last. “Perhaps not, perhaps not,” said his cousin. “That depends on how much Cheftel knew and betrayed. And in any case they have no bearing on this side the Loire.” He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on his knee. “I want you, Louis, if you will, to go to Nantes for me at once.” “I?” exclaimed Saint-Ermay. “Why? Do you really mean it?” A little flush rose to his face, and he could not wholly keep out of his voice an accent of pleasure and elation.