Brie had me by the collar.

“So that is what has become of Mar!” he cried triumphantly.  “I thought as much.  If Mar’s affairs are to be a secret from this house, then, nom de dieu, they are no secret.”

He shook me back and forth as if to shake the truth out of me, till my teeth rattled together; I could not have spoken if I would.  But he cried on, his voice rising with excitement: 

“It has been no secret where St. Quentin stands and what he has been about.  He came into Paris, smooth and smiling, his own man, forsooth—­neither ours nor the heretic’s!  Mordieu! he was Henry’s, fast and sure, save that he was not man enough to say so.  I told Mayenne last month we ought to settle with M. de St. Quentin; I asked nothing better than to attend to him.  But the general would not, but let him alone, free and unmolested in his work of stirring up sedition.  And Mar, too—­”

He stopped in the middle of a word.  All the company who had been pressing around us halted still.  I knew that behind me some one had entered the room.

M. de Brie dragged me back from where we were blocking the passage.  I turned in his grasp to face the newcomer.

He was a tall, stout man, deep-chested, thick-necked, heavy-jowled.  His wavy hair, brushed up from a high forehead, was lightest brown, while his brows, mustachios, and beard were dark.  His eyes were dark also, his full lips red and smiling.  He had the beauty and presence of all the Guises; it needed not the star on his breast to tell me that this was Mayenne himself.

He advanced into the room returning the salutes of the company, but his glance travelling straight to me and my captor.

“What have we here, Francois?”

“This is a fellow of Etienne de Mar’s, M. le Duc,” Brie answered.  “He came here with messages for Mlle. de Montluc.  I am getting out of him what Mar has been up to since he disappeared a month back.”

“You are at unnecessary pains, my dear Francois; I already know Mar’s whereabouts and doings rather better than he knows them himself.”

Brie dropped his hand from my collar, looking by no means at ease.  I perceived that this was the way with Mayenne:  you knew what he said but you did not know what he thought.  His somewhat heavy face varied little; what went on in his mind behind the smiling mask was matter for anxiety.  If he asked pleasantly after your health, you fancied he might be thinking how well you would grace the gallows.

M. de Brie said nothing and the duke continued: 

“Yes, I have kept watch over him these five weeks.  You are late, Francois.  You little boys are fools; you think because you do not know a thing I do not know it.  Was I cruel to keep my information from you, ma belle Lorance?”

The attack was absolutely sudden; he had not seemed to observe her.  Mademoiselle coloured and made no instant reply.  His voice was neither loud nor rough; he was smiling upon her.