"Yes," said de Commines, laughing at his haste, but a little bitterly, "go, go, for there is no time to be lost. It's a strange world, de Helville," he went on as the door closed. "Here we have the greatest names in the land, and every ambitious schemer in France intriguing to set foot in Plessis, and this honest heart thanking God unfeignedly that he rides away into the darkness,--he does not even ask where! But now to arrange for your journey. For the King's peace and your own, leave Plessis to-night, late as it is. You will just have time before the gates close, when none can pass. Halt at Ouzay for the night--it is the first of the King's posts, and put up at the sign of the Laughing Man. Say to the host as you enter, 'Is the good-man of Tours in the neighbourhood?' and having received his answer, say no more. Sup on the best and sleep softly, there will be no reckoning to pay. But in the morning a man, wearing a bunch of trefoil in his hat, will give you your next instructions. Follow these, but ask no questions. As you find it at Ouzay, so will it be straight through to Navarre. Everywhere you rest you will be expected, or, rather, not you, but the King's messenger, and everywhere you pass shot free." "Then what is this for?" asked I, for while he was speaking he had filled a wallet with more gold coin than Solignac had ever seen in all my five-and-twenty years. "For diplomacy," he answered laughing. "Where you cannot steal you must bribe. But there, I hear the horses in the courtyard, and since needs must when the King bids, the sooner you go south the sooner Solignac will give you a roof to your head. And who knows but the journey may find you a mistress for it! Brigitta? H'm, perhaps Brigitta, though I am no lover of swineherd wenches. Let me see the King's letter a moment." I took it from the inner pocket where, half mechanically, I had placed it for safety, and handed it to Monsieur de Commines--an oblong envelope of crisp paper, a palm and a half in length by a palm wide, stout, substantial, close-fastened. He took it, and turned at once to the seal. "My cypher and quarterings exactly, even to the flaw on the upper right hand corner of the collet; my shade of wax too, even to the perfume I commonly use. Men call me avaricious. It's a lie, de Helville; money is a good servant but the worst of masters. Yet I would give five hundred, yes a thousand livres to know what is written within, or even to see the writing. Who knows but it may seem my very own? If I do nothing by halves, neither does the King my master, though how he procured the signet I cannot imagine." With a sigh and a shake of the head he raised his eyes from the seal. "No; truly things have not turned out as I desired."