He approached Madame at the table with a semblance of that swagger affected by the weakling in presence of women, yet permitting the wandering eye and uncertain gestures to betray his uneasiness. Something had evidently gone wrong with my lord. "Have you heard, Celeste, of Yvard?" he inquired, dropping into a seat. My ears quickened at the familiar name. "Well, what of him?" "He has lost the Louisiana dispatches, and I know not what they contained." "What!" exclaimed the woman, as if genuinely alarmed, and learning the bad news at first hand. "Yes, the cursed fool lost them in some drunken brawl in the city. We have had the place thoroughly searched, but--" he finished the sentence with a shrug to express his failure. "What if they should reach Orleans?" he continued evenly. "My men fear he has gone to him anyway, hoping to play in with both for pardon. I'd feel much safer could we only lay our hands upon him. He is the one man beside ourselves here who knows--who knows, anything," the Duke went on with growing trepidation. "Well, make yourself comfort, my lord, I took the responsibility to detain Yvard in Paris." "You?" he sprang from his chair in astonishment. "You? Why? How?" "I thought your safety demanded it. My lord is too generous, too confiding," she threw toward him a glance of concern poor de Valance would have periled his soul to win. "You see, when we entrusted him with this business, it was so delicate a mission, I set a watch upon him--some of my own people of Anjou--and when he acted negligently they reported to me. He began drinking, too, and freely, so I feared his discretion. I now have the man safe in Paris. What would my lord with him?" Du Maine fixed his cold eyes upon her, for a short space, then, "It would be prudent to put him quietly out of the way," he suggested, the thin lips closing cruelly. "No, hold him, we may have further need for his sword. But have a care that he talks to no one." Madame had raised no objection to the Duke's cool command that an end be made of Yvard, yet I did her the credit to suppose it was because she well knew she might do as she liked, and he be none the wiser. He now settled himself upon a divan near Madame, with all the complacency of a man whose own foresight has saved him a serious trouble, and said after mature deliberation, gazing thoughtfully at the sportive cherubs on the ceiling: "Well, it could not have been so bad after all, for I observed the caution to prepare a warning for our friends across the frontier, and had arranged for a friend of ours to be entrapped by Orleans, betraying misleading dispatches to him. A fine plan, think you? Menezes you know is devoted to me, and I have promised him a patent." "Who did your grace say was to be this friend?" "Menezes." "Why Menezes?" "I have done much for the fellow, and he is not over clever; clever enough for the purpose, you know, but--"