"'The stars forbid me,' he said; 'but I can tell what the person is doing at this moment. She is at the rector's, where she is chattering about you, saying that you put it into the head of the lord of this château to marry young Madame----" "Hush, hush, Adamas!" cried the marquis modesty; "you should not repeat such nonsense." "No, monsieur, no! I will say nothing; but, as I was determined to know whether the sorcerer told the truth, I went out as if for a walk, as soon as he had gone; and as I passed the rectory I saw Bellinde at a window with the housekeeper, and both of them began to laugh and to mock at me behind my back." Jovelin asked if the gypsy had entered the château. "He would have liked to right well," said Adamas, "but Mercedes, who watched him from the kitchen without letting him see her, begged me not to admit him, saying that he was likely to steal; so I did not let him into the courtyard. He gazed at the door with much emotion, and, when I asked him what he saw there, he answered: "'I see great events about to take place in this house; so great and so surprising that it is my duty to warn your master. Let me speak to him.' "'You cannot,' said, 'he is not within.' "'I know where he is,' said he; 'he is at La Motte-Seuilly, where I will try to see him; but if I am not able to speak with him there without witnesses, I will come back here, and I assure you that if you refuse me admission again, you will live to regret it, for many destinies are in my hands.'" "All this is very remarkable," said the marquis, artlessly. "It is a fact that he predicted all that has happened, and I regret now that I did not question him further. If he returns, Adamas, you must bring him to me. Did not you say, my dear Mario, that he was an intelligent fellow?" "He is very amusing," replied Mario, "but my Mercedes doesn't like him. She thinks it was he who stole my father's seal. I don't think so, because he helped us to look for it and to ask the other gypsies about it. He seemed to be very fond of us, and he did all we asked him to." "And what was there on the seal, my dear boy?" "A crest. Wait! Monsieur l'Abbé Anjorrant looked at it with a glass and it looked big, for it was so small--so small that you couldn't make it out; and he said to me: "'Remember this: _Argent with a tree sinople_.'" "That is right," said the marquis; "that is my father's crest! It would be mine if King Henri had not composed another for me to suit himself." "Both are carved on the courtyard door," wrote Lucilio. "Ask the child if he did not see them when he came here." "How could he have seen them?" said Adamas, who read Lucilio's words simultaneously with his master. "The masons who were repairing the arch had their scaffolding in front of them." "Could the gypsy see the escutcheons this morning," said Lucilio with his pencil, "when he looked at the gate?"