"Does your master think this Lucas a tool of M. de Mayenne's?" "Yes, mademoiselle. He says secretaries do not plot against dukedoms for their own pleasure." "Asassination was not wont to be my cousin Mayenne's way," she said with an accent of confidence that rang as false as a counterfeit coin. I saw well enough that mademoiselle did fear, at least, Mayenne's guilt. I thought I might tell her a little more. "M. le Comte told me that since his father's coming to Paris M. de Mayenne made him offers to join the League, and he refused them. So then M. de Mayenne, seeing himself losing the whole house of St. Quentin, invented this." "But it failed. Thank God, it failed! And now he will leave Paris. He will--he must!" "He did mean to seek Navarre's camp to-morrow," I answered; "but--" "But what?" "But then the letter came." "But that makes no difference! He must go for all that. The time is over for trimming. He must stand on one side or the other. I am a Ligueuse born and bred, and I tell him to go to King Henry. It is his father's side; it is his side. He cannot stay in Paris another day." "I do not think he will go, mademoiselle." "But he must!" she cried with vehemence. "Paris is not safe for him. If he cannot stand for his wound, he must go. I will send him a letter myself to tell him he must." "Then he will never go." "Félix!" "He will not. He was going because he thought his lady flouted him; when he finds she does not--well, if he budges a step out of Paris, I do not know him. When he thought himself despised--" "And why did I turn his suit into laughter in the salon if I did not mean that I despised him? I did it for you to tell him how I made a mock of him, that he might hate me and keep away from me." "Oh," I said, "mademoiselle is beyond me; I cannot keep up with her." "And you believed it! But you must needs spoil all by flaring out with impudent speech." "I crave mademoiselle's pardon. I was wrong and insolent. But she played too well." "And if it was not play?" she cried, rising. "If I do--well, I will not say despise him--but care nothing for him? Will he then go to St. Denis? Then tell him from me that he has my pity as one cruelly cozened, and my esteem as a one-time servant of mine, but never my love. Tell him I would willingly save him alive, for the sake of the love he once bore me. But as for any answering love in my bosom, I have not one spark. Tell him to go find a new mistress at St. Denis. He might as well cry for the moon as seek to win Lorance de Montluc." "That may be true," I said; "but all the same he will try. Can mademoiselle suppose he will go out of Paris now, and leave her to marry Brie and Lorraine?" "Only one," she protested with the shadow of a smile; and then a sudden rush of tears blinded her. "I am a very miserable girl," she said woefully, "for I bring nothing but danger to those that love me." I dropped on my knees before her and kissed the hem of her dress.