“I am Count Mirabeau’s messenger, and know where the package is going. He trusts me as he trusts you. We are all friends of the same illustrious person.” Marguerite turned whiter than before. The dwarf seemed like an evil spirit forced into perilous association with herself. She answered nothing, but hid the package away among the folds of her dress, after reading the portion intended for herself. “When will you be ready to start?” inquired the dwarf. The girl hesitated; some intuition keener than any process of the mind, possessed her. She shrunk from this strange creature as if some reptile had crept in among her flowers. “That depends——Tell the Count that I will redeem my promise.” A crafty smile crossed the dark face of the dwarf. He saw that the girl was not disposed to confide in him. “I asked,” he said quietly, “because the count will trust no one but myself to come here for the reply. He is not willing to seek it himself.” “No, no! He must not do that.” “And it is impossible that mademoiselle should go to the Chaussée d’ Antin.” “Impossible! Oh, yes, quite impossible!” “So you understand the count was wise in making so insignificant a person as I am his messenger.” Marguerite answered only with a troubled smile. Zamara was puzzled how to continue a conversation that was so entirely on one side. By listening industriously when Mirabeau was with his mistress, he had learned the arrangements made between them, by which a safe correspondence might be kept up with the court; but he could obtain no information from this gentle girl; all his craft was lost upon her innocence. He lingered awhile in the room; but Marguerite had taken up her flowers, and was too deep in her fragrant work for any thought of him, save that his presence was annoying her. So he took himself off a good deal discomfited, while the poor girl sat trembling among her flowers, full of apprehensions because this strange creature had possession of her secret. CHAPTER LXXXVIII. DAME TILLERY PROCLAIMS HER HEIRESS. Scarcely had the dwarf been gone an hour, when a loud voice was heard in the passage. The door of her little room swung open, and Dame Tillery, landlady of The Swan, came sailing into the room like a ponderous, full-rigged Dutch vessel making port with all her canvas up. “Marguerite, my child, I am glad to see you; get up and embrace me, little one. Oh! that is delicious!” Marguerite started from her seat, scattering all the blossoms from her lap, and embraced the dame with such affection that the word “delicious” was repeated over and over again. “Have you come for me, my friend, as your letter promised?” “Come for you? Of course, I have! What else could have brought me to Paris? Are not all my duties at Versailles? There is enough of them, let me tell you, since her majesty has enrolled me among her ladies of honor.” “Her ladies of honor? I did not know——”