The St. Valier house! Dick would have to pass it, then, on his way to Mere Frappeur's wine shop! He sprang forward, barely taking time to thank his informant, and ran plump into a begowned priest, who, thrown from his balance, uttered a rapid series of words, as to which Dick did not know whether they were Latin ejaculations or French execrations. Dick was further impeded on his way by having to make room for a squad of soldiers, and to pass round a sledge that had come to a standstill where streets crossed. He now cast a look backward, from a slight eminence, and saw a half dozen troops turn into Palace Street where he had turned into it. One of them carried a lantern, held close to the snow. Dick knew what that meant,--they were tracing him by his footprints in the snow. He blamed himself now for having, in his desire to avoid collisions, kept so clear of other walkers. At last he reached the street indicated by his informant. He readily recognized, by its location and the great garden in whose midst it was set, the St. Valier residence. Through the half-open gate in the wall, he saw a light in the two windows at one side of the wide front door; and the momentary sound of confused voices told him that a numerous assemblage was within. He turned into the little street that ran by the long side wall of the garden. Presently he passed a smaller gate, which also stood open and which led to the rear of the grounds. Just across the street from this gate, there was a crowd looking excitedly in through the open door of a narrow one-story house, in whose lighted window appeared the inscription, "C. Frappeur, Vins." "The wine shop," thought Dick, and, as he ran across the street towards the crowd, he asked himself how he should go about transacting his business with Mere Frappeur in the presence of so many people and in the brief time before the arrival of the troops on his track. He edged into the crowd and elbowed his way towards the door, but so great was the curiosity of the people to see what was within, that he had considerable strife to enter the shop. The crowd resented his forcible passage, and jabbered noisily in French. The throng in the shop was as great as that without. Dick laboriously pushed his way to the front. "What the devil are you doing?" quoth the first English voice that Dick had heard here,--that of a burly subaltern of militia. "I must see Mere Frappeur," cried Dick. "See her, then," replied the subaltern, shoving Dick forward, and pointing to a bench, on which she lay,--a priest at her head, a surgeon at her feet. Mere Frappeur was dead from the accidental discharge of a militia captain's pistol, whose owner had been getting drunk in her wine shop.