"Now," I said bluntly, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to write these words?" Trembling so violently he had to lean on the balustrade for support, he answered me. "Madame Nicholas," he whispered. "What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth now. "The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man." He nodded. "When?" I asked suspiciously. "Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, almost fiercely. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous." "And did you throw it into my coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change, to-day?" "God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest she was playing. That is all I know." I saw it was, and after a few more words was content to dismiss him, bidding him keep silence on the matter, and remain at home in case I needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask me who I was; but preferring to keep that discovery for a day still to come, when I might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him sharply that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him. It will be believed, however, that I found the information I had received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious seemed the matter. While I could scarcely conceive any circumstances in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without cause, I could recall more than one dangerous conspiracy which had been frustrated by informers of that class--sometimes out of regard for the very persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light only, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming, but when I came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both prepared it--so that her hand might not be known--and conveyed it to me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay the case before the King, and the sagacity and penetration which were never wanting to my gracious master. An unexpected rencontre which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal both confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into effect. We succeeded in slipping in without difficulty, and duly found Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a single glance at his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us--a look so piteous that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he had infringed my orders. "How now, sirrah?" I said angrily, without waiting for him to speak. "What have you been doing?" "They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered plaintively, waving his hand toward the door.