Late that evening Le Brusquet sat alone in his room in the Louvre, my ring on the table before him. On leaving me that afternoon near the Ladies' Terrace his first thought had been, according to his promise, to return the letters we found to De Ganache; but he was not to be seen. Le Brusquet had sought the tennis courts, haunted the apartments of La Valentinois, and lounged about the lawns where the ladies and gallants of the Court played at _grelot_ of an evening; but in vain. Finally, he mounted his mule, and ambled off to the great square house behind the Bourgogne, where Antony of Vendome lodged with his train. Here he made certain he would find De Ganache, who followed the prince; but he was once more disappointed. So, giving up the quest for the present, he supped alone at Crabeau's, in the Rue des Fosses St. Germain. Then he returned to the Louvre, and sat down to think, as much of his own affairs as of mine. So far as he himself was concerned he felt he had fallen from the favour of the King. This had happened before; but now for the first time he seemed to have no wish to re-establish himself, and a longing came over him to see his little pepper-box of a tower in the Quercy, and to be once more the Sieur de Besme instead of the King of Folly. "_Eh bien_, Pompon!" he said, addressing the ape, "the kingdom of fools is too wide a realm for one man to rule. I shall abdicate, I think. What say you? The Roman went back to his plough; Besme will return to his pears." The ape simply blinked at him from his seat on the table, and, carrying out his humour, Le Brusquet continued: "You do not approve--eh? What, then, is left for me?" But as he spoke his eyes fell on the ring, and bending over it he continued: "Yes; this is where I have failed--save for this I should be off to-morrow--but to go with failure behind me----" He stopped, for someone knocked at his door, and to Le Brusquet's "Enter!" De Lorgnac stepped in. His face was pale and grave, his boots and clothes splashed with mud, and there were red spots on the whiteness of his ruffles. For one moment Le Brusquet stared at his friend, and then sprang up. "What has happened?" he cried. "Everything--and for the worst. They are taken." "Taken! You mean----" "I mean Mademoiselle de Paradis and Orrain, and others besides. La Valentinois was too quick, and struck at once." Le Brusquet swore under his breath, and Lorgnac went on: "It happened in this way. On leaving Orrain this evening he told me that De Ganache had been arrested." "De Ganache arrested too!" "Yes; at sundown near the wicket gate. The full significance of the news did not strike me at first, for there were other reasons, which we know, that might have led to his arrest. On my return to the Louvre, however, I heard sufficient to tell me that La Valentinois and her party meant to act without delay." "And never a word came to my ears, and I thought them sharp."