and finally and above all, I was sworn, so there was no use worrying about it. I had taken oath, and could not draw back.

I hurried along to the rendezvous, only pausing one moment at the street-corner to buy sausages hot from the brazier, which I crammed into my mouth as I ran. But after all was there no need of haste; the little arch, when I panted up to it, was all deserted.

No better place for a tryst could have been found in the heart of busy Paris. Only the one door opened into the alley; M. de Portreuse's high garden wall, forming the other side of the passage, was unbroken by a gate, and no curious eyes from the house could look into the deep arch and see the narrow nail-studded door at the back where I awaited the rat-faced Martin.

I stood there long, first on one foot and then on the other, fearful every moment lest some one of Monsieur's true men should come along to demand my business. No one appeared, either foe or friend, for so long that I began to think Yeux-gris had tricked me and sent me here on a fool's errand, when, all at once, a low voice said close to my ear:

"What seek you here?"

I jumped on finding at my side a little, pale, sharp-faced man—the man of the vision. He had slipped through the door so suddenly and quietly that I was once more tempted to take him for a ghost. He eyed me for a bare second; then his eyes dropped before mine.

"I am come to learn the hour," said I.

"Did you not hear the chimes ring five?"

"Oh, no need for disguise. I am come from the two in the Rue Coupejarrets. They bade me ask the hour."

He favoured me with another of his shifty glances.

"What hour meant they?"

I said bluntly, in a louder tone:

"The hour when M. Lucas sets out on his secret mission."

"Hush!" he cried. "Hush! Don't say names aloud—his or the other's."

"Well," I said crossly, "you have kept me waiting already more time than I care to lose. How much longer before you will tell me what I came to know?"

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