"I am sorry," Madame said kindly. And she held out her hand. I raised it to my lips. "To-morrow--at twelve--here!" she breathed. I started. I rather guessed than heard the words, so softly were they spoken; but her eyes made up for the lack of sound, and I understood. The next moment she turned from me, and with a last reluctant glance at Louis, who still had his back to me, I went out. The man who had admitted me was in the hall. "You will find your horse at the Louvre, Monsieur," he said, as he opened the door. I rewarded him, and going out, without a thought whither I was going, walked along the street, plunged in reflection; until marching on blindly I came against a man. That awoke me, and I looked round. I had been in the house little more than three hours, and in Nîmes scarcely longer; yet so much had happened in the time that it seemed strange to me to find the streets unfamiliar, to find myself alone in them, at a loss which way to turn. Though it was hard on ten o'clock, and only a swaying lantern here and there made a ring of smoky light at the meeting of four ways, there were numbers of people still abroad; a few standing, but the majority going one way, the men with cloaks about their necks, the women with muffled heads. Feeling the necessity, since I must get myself a lodging, of putting away for the moment my one absorbing thought--the question of Louis' behaviour--I stopped a man who was not going with the stream, and asked him the way to the Hôtel de Louvre. I learned not only that but the cause of the concourse. "There has been a procession," he answered gruffly. "I should have thought that you would know that!" he added, with a glance at my hat. And he turned on his heel. I remembered the red cockade I wore, and before I went farther paused to take it out. As I moved on again, a man came quickly up behind me, and as he passed thrust a paper into my hand. Before I could speak he was gone; but the incident and the bustle of the streets, strange at this late hour, helped to divert my thoughts; and I was not surprised when, on reaching the inn, I was told that every room was full. "My horse is here," I said, thinking that the landlord, seeing me walk in on foot, might distrust the weight of my purse. "Yes, Monsieur; and if you like you can lie in the eating-room," he answered very civilly. "You are welcome, and you will do no better elsewhere. It is as if the fair were being held at Beaucaire. The city is full of strangers. Almost as full as it is of those things!" he continued querulously, and he pointed to the paper in my hand. I looked at it, and saw that it was a manifesto headed "_Sacrilege! Mary Weeps!_" "It was thrust into my hand a minute ago," I said. "To be sure," he answered. "One morning we got up and found the walls white with them. Another day they were flying loose about the streets."