There was a determination in the look and demeanour of the young Marquis of St. Real which augured something in his nature not pleasant to lay hands upon; and, consequently, the courtiers of the contemptible monarch took care not to enforce his commands with any rudeness. Nor was it necessary; for St. Real, finding that any farther attempt, at that moment, to communicate to the king the apprehensions he entertained from what he had seen in Paris, would be vain, retreated from the royal presence without farther question, resolving immediately to inform his cousin D'Aubin, and beg him to convey the bare intelligence of danger to the monarch, while he himself changed his dress, and prepared to give more full and minute information. Rejoining his attendants in the court, and looking eagerly round, as he quitted the royal residence, in order to ascertain whether the monk were still in sight, St. Real turned his steps back towards the house where he had found D'Aubin on his arrival at St. Cloud. It was not, indeed, that he could feel particularly interested in the fate of the monarch whom he had just seen, or that he thought the death of such a degraded being would be, at any other period, much to be regretted in France; but the young lord, acting upon general principles which accidental circumstances never greatly modified, felt it his bounden duty to prevent, if possible, a meditated crime; and, even had it not been so, would have been extremely desirous of preserving the life of the reigning sovereign, at a moment when political and religious factions, personal enmities, and contending interests, convulsed the realm, and required no new brand of discord to bring down sorrows, desolation, and ruin, upon the people, the country, and the state. Whichever way St. Real turned his eyes, however, various groups of persons loitering about, without any apparent object, interrupted his view ere it could penetrate many yards. Amongst them the figure of the Jacobin was not to be seen; and, mounting his horse, which had been led after him, he proceeded as fast as possible to the dwelling in which his cousin had taken up his quarters. He found D'Aubin surrounded by a large party of the gay nobility of Paris; and levity and merriment had so completely taken possession of every one present, that St. Real could obtain no attention for the serious matter he had to communicate. Even his cousin himself, whom he knew to be full of strong and fiery passions, and whom he had seen that very morning moved by no light emotions, appeared now to have given himself up entirely to the idlest spirit of gaiety; so that the only effect produced by the tale which the young nobleman had to tell was loud laughter at the repulse he had met with from the monarch's presence, and advice to suffer Henry to deal with his friend the friar as best he might.