"Here, give it me!" cried Madame de Chazeul not withdrawing her eyes from the book for an instant; and as soon as the maid had delivered it into her hand, she turned page after page, looking them all over, but without finding aught written on any leaf but the name of Helen de la Tremblade, in the hand of her uncle. "What could he want with it?" she murmured; "perhaps I have deceived myself.--Yet, no! The room she used to occupy!--so said the man. Here, boy, what did father Walter say, when he sent you?" "I do not well remember, Madam," answered the page, "for I was half asleep. But I know he told me, you said I was to go, and that I must get the book from Mademoiselle Helen's room." "Did he say the room _she used_ to occupy?" demanded Madame de Chazeul. "Answer me exactly." "I cannot recollect, Madam," replied the boy. "He said her room; but I did not take much heed as to the words." "Fool!" cried the Marchioness looking fiercely at him; "you should take heed of everything;" and then falling into thought again, she murmured, "Well, he is better where he is. If he be there, he may rage when the knot is tied, but cannot unloose it; if he were free he might stop the tying. Get thee gone, boy; and remember, when any one tells thee to go anywhere in my name, come to me and ask if they have authority." "What, in the night?" asked the page. "Ay, in the night," replied his mistress; "if I can give them directions, I can give thee an answer.--Now, girl, call Martin;" and leaning on the table while the maid hastened to fulfil her orders, she fell into a fit of meditation. Many minutes did not elapse before the man she had sent for made his appearance. And still preserving that haughty tone of hands, which is so effectual with dependents, even when requiring evil actions at their hands, until they find that all real power to injure or disappoint is at an end, she demanded, "Well, is the priest safe?" "Ay, Madam," answered the man; "I have done your will, though it be against my conscience." "Conscience!" cried Madame de Chazeul; "what have you to do with conscience?--Is it not in a priest's keeping?" she added, seeing an unpleasant shade come over the man's brow; "and can he not give you absolution? This may cost a score more crowns than any other offence. But it is purchasable, and I will pay the money. To kill a Cardinal is a ruinous thing; but it can be absolved on a fair calculation of his weight in gold. These candlesticks of the church can always be replaced; and this is but a trifle. Methinks you will become a Huguenot next, and fancy that the Pope has no power to absolve us. I tell you what, Martin, if such were the case, many a fair lady and gallant gentleman, in France, would be in a perilous case." "I shall never turn Huguenot, Madam," replied the man gravely; "but, as father Walter said, 'to drag a priest from the altar is more like the act of a heretic than of a Christian man.'"