She fled through the passage, and letting the curtain fall I walked up to the door with a trembling heart, and drew back the bolt, to find Marcilly before me, with Badehorn standing behind him, a look of alarm in his face. “You! In Paris!” I exclaimed. “Not by my own will,” he laughed grimly; “but, thanks to this dress, I am still safe,” and then for the first time I noticed that he was clad in the black and yellow of Guise. “Let no one interrupt us, Badehorn,” I said; and with an affected cordiality--I seemed to learn without effort to play the hypocrite--I took Marcilly’s arm and drew him within whilst he continued talking. “I had this dress ready for an emergency, and actually helped to batter in my own doors. Then seeing a chance of getting away I slipped up here, where I knew I would be safe for an hour or so,” and with these words he flung himself into the chair near the window, and began playing with the glove I had left on the table. Sick at heart as I was with the fear that he would recognize the glove, I could not help, even then, noticing the extraordinary resemblance that he bore to the Prince of Condé, the secret chief of our conspiracy, a resemblance that had given Marcilly the nickname of “The Shadow of Condé.” And as I stared at him he glanced up at me, running his eyes over my gay court dress. “You are safe as yet, I see,” he said, “and have time for these things,” and he flicked the glove from side to side. “I leave Paris to-night. I am no longer safe.” “Then we will go together and join the Prince. It must be open war now. Thank God! The Cardinal is a poltroon, and has lost his head, else they would have trapped us like rabbits--but there are still some men amongst the Guisards, and they may be here any moment. Come!” And he started up, the glove still in his hand. “Let us be off!” For an instant I knew not what to say; then recovering myself with an effort I told him: “I will meet you at compline--at the Porte St. Victor.” It was the gate opposite to that by which I meant to leave Paris. “At compline! Between this and compline we may have lodgings in the Châtelet--what bee have you got in your head to stay here now?” Unconsciously my eyes fell on the glove in his hand, and following my glance he jumped to a conclusion. “I see,” he said with a bitter laugh, “this trifle! A pretty toy,” and then, looking at it curiously, “’tis almost small enough to fit her hand.” Did the man suspect or know? Was he trifling with me? For the moment I thought he was, and watched him with a new-born cowardice in my heart. Even as I did so I thought I heard a movement in the room within, and glanced round with a guilty start. Surely Marie had not stayed? It could not be! And then I turned again to Marcilly. He had not observed that start and backward look. He was staring at the glove in his hand. “The very perfume she uses,” he murmured to himself, and, laying the glove gently on the table, he looked me full in the face, saying--