IT was true then, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. Out of Marie’s own lips was she convicted twice over, and had I been struck across the face with her riding-whip, the sting, the smart, would have been nothing to the intolerable pain her words inflicted upon me. I lost all power of reason. All power of thought left me. For a space my mind seemed numbed and paralyzed. I looked dully around on the purple haze, and the still, silent trees, listening, I know not why, to the beat of her horse’s hoofs, as the sound grew fainter and more faint, until at last it died away in the distance. I might have stood there for a half-hour, with a mind in which all things were blurred and dark, save for that one thought of revenge, burning like an evil star through the chaos of gloom in my soul. At last, with a bitter oath, I remounted and rode back to Orleans, giving my horse his head and the spur, seeking in his speed some relief for the torment in my mind; essaying, in short, to perform the impossible, and to flee from myself. To this day I have no recollection of how I passed the city gates, of when and where my horse slackened pace, and I only realized that I had come back when the beast stopped of his own accord under the snarling lions over Cipierre’s gates. When I entered the hall I found the Vicomte there, pacing backward and forward with a disturbed and anxious air. He almost started as he saw me, and asked in a breath: “Has anything happened? You are as white as a ghost--where is Jean?” In my heart I cursed my tell-tale face, but answered calmly enough: “Nothing has happened. Marcilly is with our man, as far as I know.” “And you did not stay?” “I had other work. I escorted Madame de Marcilly to St. Loup. She is now with the Princess.” “Oh! They have made a mess of things,” he burst out. “I am certain that Catherine knows where the Princess is, and at the first check will hand her over to the Philistines.” “But there has been no hitch up to now?” “_Mordieu!_ Do you know that this morning we were within an ace of losing our heads?” “Indeed! What happened?” “There was a council this morning, a hurried, sudden council, to consider the Constable’s move. The Guise was not there. He refrained from coming; but that Red Phalaris, the Cardinal, urged the hastening of his bloody design.” “The execution of Condé?”