“He is charged with the murder of one Pontou, a lackey.  Of course he did not commit it, nor would you care if he had.  His real offence is making love to your ward.”

“Well, do you deny it?”

“Not the love, but the offence of it.  Palpably you might do much worse than dispose of the lady to my heir.”

“I might do much better than bestow my time on you if that is all you have to say.”

“We have hardly opened the subject, M. de Mayenne—­”

“I have no wish to carry it further.”

“Monsieur, the king’s ranks afford no better match than my heir.”

“No maid of mine shall ever marry a Royalist.”

“I swore no son of mine should ever marry a Leaguer, but I have come to see the error of my ways, as you will see yours, Mayenne.  It is for you to choose where among the king’s forces you will marry mademoiselle.”

A vague uneasiness, a fear which he would not own a fear, crept into Mayenne’s eyes.  He studied the face before him, a face of gay challenge, and said, at length, not quite confidently himself: 

“You speak with a confidence, St. Quentin.”

“Why, to be sure.”

Mayenne jumped heavily to his feet.

“What mean you?”

“I mean that mademoiselle’s marrying is in my hands.  Where is your ward,
M. de Mayenne?”

“Mordieu!  Have you found her?”

“You speak sooth.”

“In your hotel—­”

“No, eager kinsman.  In a place whither you cannot follow her.”

Mayenne looked about, as if with some instinctive idea of seeking a weapon, of summoning his soldiers.

“By God’s throne, you shall tell me where!”

“With pleasure.  She is at St. Denis.”

Mayenne cried helplessly, as numbed under a blow: 

“St. Denis!  But how—­”

“How came she there?  On foot, every step.  I suppose she never walked two streets in her life before, has she, M. de Mayenne?  But she tramped to St. Denis through the dark, to knock at my door at one in the morning.”

Mayenne seized Monsieur’s wrist.

“She is safe, St. Quentin?  She is safe?”

“As safe, monsieur, as the king’s protection can make her.”

“Pardieu!  Is she with the king?”

“She is at my lodgings, in the care of the saddler’s wife who lets them.  I left a staunch man in charge—­I have no doubt of him.”

“You answer for her safety?” Mayenne cried huskily; his breath coming short.  He was flushed, the veins in his forehead corded.

“When she came last night, it happened that the king was there,” Monsieur went on.  “Her loveliness and her misery moved him to the heart.”

“Thousand thunders of heaven!  You, with your son, shall be hostages for her safe return.”

“The king,” Monsieur went on, as immovably as Mayenne himself at his best, “with that warm heart of his pitying beauty in distress, is eager for mademoiselle’s marriage with her lover Mar.  But he did not favour my venture here; he called it a silly business.  He said you would clap me in jail, and he told me flat I might rot my life out there before he would give up to you Mlle. de Montluc.”