At that hour he descended to the first floor, all clad and equipped as if for a long journey. He had asked the nurse the night before to give him all the money she could get together. The people of his household were most earnest in offering their services to him. The four volunteers who had come in his suite from Calais were foremost in placing themselves at his disposal; but he thanked them most heartily, and dismissed them, retaining only the page André, the latest comer, and his nurse Aloyse. "My good Aloyse," he began, "I am expecting from day to day the arrival of two guests, friends of mine, from Calais,--Jean Peuquoy and his wife Babette. It may be, Aloyse, that I shall not be here to receive them; but even in my absence,--nay, especially in my absence,--I beg you, Aloyse, to make them welcome, and treat them as if they were my brother and sister. Babette already knows you well from having heard me speak of you a hundred times. She will trust in you as a daughter in her mother; so I entreat you, in the name of your affection for me, to show her a mother's tenderness and indulgence." "I promise you I will, Monseigneur," said the kind-hearted nurse, simply; "and you know that from me those words are sufficient. Have no anxiety about your guests, for they shall want for nothing in the way of bodily comfort." "Thanks, Aloyse," said Gabriel, pressing her hand. "Now for you, André!" said he to the page whom Madame Diane de Castro had given him. "I have certain last commissions of grave importance which I must confide to a trusty hand, and I have selected you, André, to execute them, because you take the place of my faithful Martin-Guerre." "I am at your command, Monseigneur," said André. "Listen carefully to what I say," continued Gabriel. "In an hour I shall leave this house alone; if I return in a short time, you will have nothing to do,--or rather, I shall have different orders to give you. But it is possible that I may not return,--not to-day, that is, nor to-morrow, nor for a long time to come--" The nurse, in despair, raised her clasped hands heavenward imploringly. André interrupted his master. "Pardon, Monseigneur! you say that you may not return here for a long time?" "Yes, André." "And am I not to accompany you?--and perhaps not to see you again for a long while?" added André, who seemed both sorrowful and embarrassed at this information. "That may well be, no doubt," said Gabriel. "But Madame de Castro," rejoined the page, "before I quitted her intrusted to my care a message, a letter for Monseigneur--" "And you have never yet given it to me, André?" said Gabriel, warmly. "Pardon me, Monseigneur," André replied; "I was instructed not to deliver it unless you were to return from the Louvre either very sorrowful or in a state of angry excitement. Only in such case Madame Diane told me to give Monsieur d'Exmès the letter, which contained what might be a warning to him and perhaps a consolation."