"If mademoiselle is running into danger staying here, I pray her to go back to bed. M. Étienne did not send me hither to bring her grief and trouble." "Who are you?" she asked me abruptly. "You have never been here before on monsieur's errands?" "No, mademoiselle; I came up only yesterday from Picardie. I belong on the St. Quentin estate. My name is Félix Broux." "Alack, you have chosen a bad time to visit Paris!" "I came up to see life," I said, "and mordieu! I am seeing it." "I pray God you may not see death, too," she answered soberly. She stood looking at me helplessly. "I am in my lord's black books," she said slowly, as if to herself; "but I might weep François de Brie's rough heart to softness. Then it is a question whether he could turn Mayenne. I wish I knew whether the duke himself or only Paul de Lorraine has planned this move to-night. That is," she added, blushing, but speaking out candidly, "whether they attack M. de Mar as the League's enemy or as my lover." "This M. Paul de Lorraine," said I, speaking as respectfully as I knew how, but eager to find out all I could for M. Étienne--"this M. de Lorraine is mademoiselle's lover, too?" She shrugged her shoulders, neither assenting nor denying. "We are all pawns in the game for M. de Mayenne to push about as he chooses. For a time M. de Mar was high in his favour. Then my cousin Paul came back after a two years' disappearance, and straightway he was up and M. de Mar was down. And then Paul vanished again as suddenly as he had come, and it became the turn of M. de Brie. Now to-night Paul walked in as suddenly as he had left and at once played on me to write that unlucky letter. And what it bodes for _him_ I know not." She spoke with amazing frankness; yet, much as she had told me, the fact of her telling it told me even more. I saw that she was as lonely in this great house as I had been at St. Quentin. She would have talked delightedly to M. le Comte's dog. "Mademoiselle," I said, "I would like well to tell you what has been happening to my M. Étienne this last month, if you are not afraid to stay long enough to hear it." "Oh, every one is asleep long ago; it is past two o'clock. Yes, you may tell me if you wish." She sat down on a praying-cushion, motioning me to the other, and I began my tale. At first she listened with a little air of languor, as if the whole were of slight consequence and she really did not care at all what M. le Comte had been about these five weeks. But as I got into the affair of the Rue Coupejarrets she forgot her indifference and leaned forward with burning cheeks, hanging on my words with eager questions. And when I told her how Lucas had evaded us in the darkness, she cried: "Blessed Virgin! M. de Mar has enough to contend with in this Lucas, without Paul de Lorraine, and Brie, and the Duke of Mayenne himself." I was silent, being of her opinion. Presently she asked reluctantly: