has informed me. I fear that you have made many enemies for yourself through an action which will likely go unrewarded, and that Paris is therefore as little suited at present to your health as it is to mine. I am setting out for Blois on a mission of exceeding delicacy wherein your advice and guidance would be of infinite value to me. I shall remain at Choisy until to-morrow morning, and should there be no ties to hold you in Paris, and you be minded to bear me company, join me there at the Hôtel du Connétable where I shall lie to-night. Your grateful and devoted     

       “ANDRE.”      

       So! There was one at least who desired my company! I had not thought it.       “If there be no ties to hold you in Paris,” he wrote. Dame! A change of air would suit me vastly. I was resolved—a fig for the Cardinal's threat to hang me if I were found in his nephew's company!     

       “My suit of buff, Michelot,” I shouted, springing to my feet, “and my leather jerkin.”      

       He gazed at me in surprise.     

       “Is Monsieur going a journey?”      

       I answered him that I was, and as I spoke I began to divest myself of the clothes I wore. “Pack my suit of pearl grey in the valise, with what changes of linen I possess; then call Master Coupri that I may settle with him. It may be some time before we return.”      

       In less than half an hour I was ready for the journey, spurred and booted, with my rapier at my side, and in the pocket of my haut-de­chausses a purse containing some fifty pistoles—best part of which I had won from Vilmorin at lansquenet some nights before, and which moderate sum represented all the moneys that I possessed.     

       Our horses were ready, my pistols holstered, and my valise strapped to Michelot's saddle. Despite the desperate outlook of my fortunes, of which I had made him fully cognisant, he insisted upon clinging to me, reminding me that at Rocroi I had saved his life and that he would leave me only when I bade him go.     

       As four o'clock was striking at Nôtre Dame we crossed the Pont Neuf, and going by the Quai des Augustins and the Rue de la Harpe, we quitted Paris by the St. Michel Gate and took the road to Choisy. The rain had ceased, but the air was keen and cold, and the wind cut like a 

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