Still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him, he continued so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his face when I produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the order, when something in a sidelong glance which he cast at his wife caught my eye, and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on it, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the ground of mistake; and, withdrawing to the door, I asked him at the last moment to light me downstairs.

Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.

"Now," I said, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to write those words?"

Trembling so violently that he had to lean on the bal.u.s.trade for support, he told me.

"Madame Nicholas," he whispered.

"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth.

"The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man."

He nodded.

"When?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, with a grimace. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous, and would think all things."

"And did you throw it into a coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change to-day?"

"G.o.d forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest that she was playing.

That is all I know."

I saw that he spoke the truth, and after a few more words I dismissed him, bidding him keep silence, and remain at home in case I needed him.

At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask who I was; but preferring to keep that discovery for a day to come, when I might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him only that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him.

It will be believed that I found the information I had received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious seemed the matter. While I could not imagine circ.u.mstances in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without cause, I could recall more than one conspiracy which had been frustrated by informers of that cla.s.s--sometimes out of regard for the persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming; but when I came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both prepared it and conveyed it to me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I had not pa.s.sed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay the case before the King, and be guided by the sagacity which was never wanting to my gracious master.

An unexpected meeting which awaited me on my return to the a.r.s.enal confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into effect.

We entered without difficulty, and duly found Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a glance at his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need the look of penitence which he a.s.sumed on seeing us--a look so piteous that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he had infringed my orders.

"How now, sirrah?" I said, without waiting for him to speak. "What have you been doing?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered plaintively, waving his hand towards the door.

"What!" I cried sternly; for this was an instance of such direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered penitently, edging away from me as he spoke.

"Who are they?" I asked, leaving the question of his punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not save you."

"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard the engineer, and M. de Fontange, and----"

"Pardieu!" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the door, and let me see them."

With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not perceived to be ajar, was thrown widely open, and a laughing face thrust out. It was the King's.

"Ha, ha! Grandmaster!" he cried, diverted by the success of his jest and the change which doubtless came over my countenance. "Never was such hospitality, I'll be sworn! But come, pardon this varlet. And now embrace me, and tell me where you have been playing truant."

Saying these words with the charm which never failed him, and in his time won more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise; nor was Maignan, who was the author, it will be remembered, of that whimsical procession to Rosny after the battle of Ivry, which I have elsewhere described, far behind them; the rascal knowing well that the King's presence covered all, and that in my gratification at the honour paid me I should be certain to overlook his impertinence.

Perceiving that this impromptu visit had no other object than to divert Henry--though he was kind enough to say that he felt uneasy when he did not see me often--I begged to know if he would honour me by staying to sup; but this he would not do, though he consented to drink a cup of my Arbois wine, and praised it highly. By-and-by I thought I saw that he was willing to be alone with me; and as I had reason to desire this myself, I made an opportunity. Sending for Arnaud and some of my gentlemen, I committed my other guests to their care, and led the King into my closet, where, after requesting his leave to speak on business, I proceeded to unfold to him the adventure of the s...o...b..ll, with all the particulars which I have set down.

He listened attentively, drumming on the table with his fingers; nor did he move or speak when I had done, but still continued in the same att.i.tude of thought. At last: "Grandmaster," he said, touching with his hand the mark of the wound on his lip, "how long is it since Chastel's attempt--when I got this?"

"Seven years last Christmas, sire," I answered, after a moment's thought.

"And Barriere's?"

"That was the year before. Avenius' plot was that year too."

"And the Italian's from Milan, of whom the Capuchin Honorio warned us?"

"That was two years ago, sire."

"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he continued, in a tone of extreme sadness. "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding your fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you, too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? And yet he has been careless and distraught of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an appointment, of which he wished to have the sale."

I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry too remained silent. At length he rose with an air of resolution.

"We will clear up this matter within an hour!" he said. "I will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grandmaster, order half a dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do."

I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I saw, therefore, that his mind was made up, and that as his spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this expedition as a relief from the _ennui_ which at times troubled him, I reluctantly withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King dismissed his suite with a few words, and in a short s.p.a.ce we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house.

He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and observation of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate uses. Although we noted lights shining behind several of the barred windows, the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King hitched forward his sword, and I begged him to permit the Swiss to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, and they were left at the entrance to the court with orders to follow at a given signal.

On the steps the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure which promised peril, than his spirits rose to such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in danger man ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of those boyish frolics which at times swayed him, when a loud outcry inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us of the business which brought us thither.

Wondering what it might mean, I was for rapping on the door with my hilt. But the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the latch. The door yielded to his hand, and gave us admittance.

We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A glance showed me that the woman was Madame Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or what was happening in the house.

I stood a moment, and then finding that in her excitement she took no notice of us, I beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress that a gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the object of her attention was a door at that side of the hall; for, stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck on it pa.s.sionately and repeatedly with her hands.

"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain! Your friends shall not save you!"

Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her, begged a word with her apart, thinking that she would recognize me.

Her answer showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away! You will not! I know your tricks. You are as bad one as the other, and shield one another come what will!" Then turning again to the door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I will have no more of your intrigues and your Hallots!"

I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears at the name. "But, Madame," I said, "one moment."

"Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!"

Words so curiously _a propos_ could not but recall to my mind the confusion into which the mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with the warning conveyed to me, they should have corroborated my suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great a.s.surance that I said, "Do I understand then, madame, that M. du Hallot is in that room?"

"Monsieur du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream.

"No: but Madame du Hallot is, and he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! But I will have no more secrecy, and no more plots. I have suffered enough, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with pa.s.sion.

"I shall stay! Oh, I shall stay, I a.s.sure you, until you do come. Until morning if necessary!"