"Then I would spend these last here in Blois," he said, smiling at her. "You would do better for the Cause you pretend to serve if you took my grey alezan out there, and rode him at gallop through the North Gate. I give him to you if you will!" "I should only bring him back by the South Gate," he said, smiling. "While you remain here, I am no better than a poor moth fluttering about the candle!" "But the Cause?" she cried, with an angry clap of her hands. "That for the Cause!" said Guise, snapping his fingers lightly; "a man has but one life to live, and few privileges therein. But surely he may be allowed to lay that one at a fair lady's feet!" Without answering, Valentine la Niña swept up the stairs of the Queen's lodging, her heart within her like lead. "After all," she murmured, as she shut herself in her room, "I have done my best. I have warned him time and again. I cannot save a man against his will. Paugh!" (she turned hastily from the window), "there he is again on the other side of the way, pacing the street as if it were the poop of an amiral!" The little walled garden at Madame Granier's, with its trellised vines, the wind-swept wintry shore of the Loire, and the bleached shell-pink of the shingle, all went back to their ancient quiet. The whole world was in, at, and about the Château. Men, women, and both sorts of angels were busy around the Castle of Blois in these short grey days of mid-most winter. Now and then, however, would come a heavenly morning, when Claire, left alone, looked out upon the clear, clean, zenith-blue sweep of the river, and on the misty opal and ultramarine ash of the distance, ridge fading behind ridge as drowsy thought fades into sleep. "It is a Paradise of beauty, but"--here she hesitated a while--"there is no Adam, that I can see!" In spite of the winter day she opened her window to the slightly sun-warmed air. "I declare I am somewhat in Eve's mood to-day," she continued, smiling to herself as she laid down her embroidery; "even an affable serpent would be better than nothing." But it could not be. For all the powers of good and evil--the Old Serpent among them--were full of business in the Château of Blois during these days of the King's last parliament. And so, while Claire read her Amyot's _Plutarch_ and John Knox's _Reformation_, the single stroke which changed all history hung unseen in the blue. CHAPTER XX. THE BLOOD ON THE KERCHIEF The most familiar servants of my Lord of Guise dared not awake their master. He had cast himself down on the great bed in his chamber when he came in late, or rather early--no man cared to ask which--from the lodging of Monsieur de Noirmoutier. Even his bravest gentlemen feared to disturb him, though the King's messenger had come twice to summon him to a council meeting at the Château. "Early--very early? Well, what is that to me?" said the herald. "Bid your master come to the King!"