"Will you descend with me to the door, Monsieur Philip?" "Assuredly I will, if it will please you; though what you are going to show me there, I cannot imagine." Pierre led the way downstairs and out through the door. "Do you see that, sir?" "Yes, I see that, Pierre." "What do you take it to be, sir?" "Well, it is not too dark to see what it is, Pierre. It is a small white cross that some urchin has chalked on the door." "Will you please to walk a little farther, sir? There is a cross on this door. There is none here, neither on the next. Here you see another, and then a door without one. Now, sir, does not that strike you as curious?" "Well, I don't know, Pierre. A boy might very well chalk some doors, as he went along, and leave others untouched." "Yes, sir. But there is one very remarkable thing. I have gone on through several streets, and it has always been the same--so far as I can discover by questioning the concierges--at every house in which Huguenots are lodging, there is a white cross on the door. In the houses that are not so marked, there are no Huguenots." "That is strange, certainly, Pierre," Philip said, struck alike by the fact and by the earnestness with which Pierre expressed it. "Are you quite sure of what you say?" "I am quite sure, sir. I returned here at nine o'clock, and saw this mark on our door. I did not pay much heed to it, but went upstairs. Then, as I thought it over, I said to myself, 'Is this a freak of some passerby, or is it some sort of signal?' Then I thought I would see whether our house alone was marked, or whether there were crosses on other doors. I went to the houses of several gentlemen of our party, and on each of their doors was a white cross. Then I looked farther, and found that other houses were unmarked. At some of these I knocked and asked for one or other of your friends. In each case I heard that I was mistaken, for that no Huguenots were lodging there." [Illustration: That cross is placed there by design.] "It is evident, sir, that this is not a thing of chance, but that these crosses are placed there by design." Philip went down the street, and satisfied himself that Pierre had spoken correctly; and then returned to his lodgings, pausing, however, before the house of the Count de Valecourt, and erasing the cross upon it. He entered his own door without touching the mark; but Pierre, who followed him in, rubbed the sleeve of his doublet across it, unnoticed by his master, and then followed him upstairs. Philip seated himself thoughtfully.