The slow twilight faded altogether, and the dark came.  The city was very still.  Once in a while a shout or a sound of bell was borne over the roofs, or infrequent voices and footsteps sounded in the street beyond our gate.  The men in the court under my window were quiet too, talking among themselves without much raillery or laughter; I knew they discussed the unhappy plight of the heir of St. Quentin.  The chimes had rung some time ago the half-hour after nine, and I was fidgeting to be off, but huffed as I was with him, I could not lower myself to go ask Vigo’s leave to start.  He might come after me when he wanted me.

“Felix!  Felix!” Marcel shouted down the corridor.  I sprang up; then, remembering my dignity, moved no further, but bade him come in to me.

“Where are you mooning in the dark?” he demanded, stumbling over the threshold.  “Oh, there you are.  Dame! you’d come down-stairs mighty quick if you knew what was there for you?”

“What?” I cried, divided between the wild hope that it was Monsieur and the wilder one that it was M. Etienne.

“Don’t you wish I’d tell you?  Well, you’re a good boy, and I will.  It’s the prettiest lass I’ve seen in a month of Sundays—­you in your petticoats don’t come near her.”

“For me?” I stuttered.

“Aye; she asked for M. le Duc, and when he wasn’t here, for you.  I suppose it’s some friend of M. Etienne’s.”

I supposed so, indeed; I supposed it was the owner of my borrowed plumage come to claim her own, angry perhaps because I had not returned it to her.  I wondered whether she would scratch my eyes out because I had lost the cap—­whether I could find it if I went to look with a light.  None too eagerly I descended to her.

She was standing against the wall in the archway.  Two or three of the guardsmen were about her, one with a flambeau, by which they were all surveying her.  She wore the coif and blouse, the black bodice and short striped skirt, of the country peasant girl, and, like a country girl, she showed a face flushed and downcast under the soldiers’ bold scrutiny.  She looked up at me as at a rescuing angel.  It was Mlle. de Montluc!

I dashed past the torch-bearer, nearly upsetting him in my haste, and snatched her hand.

“Mademoiselle!  Come into the house!”

She clutched me with fingers as cold as marble, which trembled on mine.

“Where is M. de St. Quentin?”

“At St. Denis.”

“You must take me there to-night.”

“I was going,” I stammered, bewildered; “but you, mademoiselle—­”

“You knew of M. de Mar’s arrest?”

“Aye.”

“What coil is this, Felix?” demanded Vigo, coming up.  He took the torch from his man, and held it in mademoiselle’s face, whereupon an amazing change came over his own.  He lowered the light, shielding it with his hand, as if it were an impertinent eye.

“You are Vigo,” she said at once.