The King played with the child, tossing it, kissing it with entire devotion, speaking to it in those vague and foolish words, the onomatopoeia of mothers and nurses; his voice was childlike, his brow cleared, joy came back to his saddened countenance; and when Marie saw that her lover had forgotten everything, she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered in his ear: "Will not you tell me, my Charlot, why you put assassins in my keeping, and who these men are, and what you intend to do with them? And whither were you going across the roofs? I hope there was no woman in the case." "Then you still love me so well?" said the King, caught by the bright flash of one of those questioning looks which women can give at a critical moment. "You could doubt me," replied she, as the tears gathered under her beautiful girlish eyelids. "There are women in my adventure, but they are witches. Where was I?" "We were quite near here, on the gable of a house," said Marie. "In what street?" "In the Rue Saint-Honoré, my jewel," said the King, who seemed to have recovered himself, and who, as he recalled his ideas, wanted to give his mistress some notion of the scene that was about to take place here. "As I crossed it in pursuit of some sport, my eyes were attracted by a bright light in a top window of the house inhabited by René, my mother's perfumer and glover--yours too, the whole Court's. I have strong suspicions as to what goes on in that man's house, and if I am poisoned that is where the poison is prepared." "I give him up to-morrow," said Marie. "What, you have still dealt with him since I left him?" said the King. "My life was here," he added gloomily, "and here no doubt they have arranged for my death." "But, my dear boy, I have but just come home from Dauphiné with our Dauphin," said she, with a smile, "and I have bought nothing of René since the Queen of Navarre died.--Well, go on; you climbed up to René's roof----?"