Yeux-gris, lounging against the table, struck in:

"I can tell you that myself. He told Jacques he saw us in the window last night. Did you not?"

"Aye, monsieur. The thunder woke me, and when I looked out I saw you plain as day. But Maître Jacques said it was a vision."

"I flattered myself I saw you first and got that shutter closed very neatly," said Yeux-gris. "Dame! I am not so clever as I thought. So old Jacques called us ghosts, did he?"

"Yes, monsieur. He told me this house belonged to M. de Béthune, who was a Huguenot and killed in the massacre."

Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter.

"He said my house belonged to the Béthunes! Well played, Jacques! You owe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make him think us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did he say, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"

"No," said I, seeing that I had been fooled and had had all my terrors for naught, and feeling much chagrined thereat. "How was I to know it was a lie? I know naught about Paris. I came up but yesterday from St. Quentin."

"St. Quentin!" came a cry from the henchman. With a fierce "Be quiet, fool!" Gervais turned to me and demanded my name.

"Félix Broux."

"Who sent you here?"

"Monsieur, no one."

"You lie."

Again he gripped me by the shoulder, gripped till the tears stood in my eyes.

"No one, monsieur; I swear it."

"You will not speak! I'll make you, by Heaven."

He seized my thumb and wrist to bend one back on the other, torture with strength such as his. Yeux-gris sprang off the table.

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