“I do not think he will go, mademoiselle.”

“But he must!” she cried with vehemence.  “Paris is not safe for him.  If he cannot stand for his wound, he must go.  I will send him a letter myself to tell him he must.”

“Then he will never go.”

“Felix!”

“He will not.  He was going because he thought his lady flouted him; when he finds she does not—­well, if he budges a step out of Paris, I do not know him.  When he thought himself despised—­”

“And why did I turn his suit into laughter in the salon if I did not mean that I despised him?  I did it for you to tell him how I made a mock of him, that he might hate me and keep away from me.”

“Oh,” I said, “mademoiselle is beyond me; I cannot keep up with her.”

“And you believed it!  But you must needs spoil all by flaring out with impudent speech.”

“I crave mademoiselle’s pardon.  I was wrong and insolent.  But she played too well.”

“And if it was not play?” she cried, rising.  “If I do—­well, I will not say despise him—­but care nothing for him?  Will he then go to St. Denis?  Then tell him from me that he has my pity as one cruelly cozened, and my esteem as a one-time servant of mine, but never my love.  Tell him I would willingly save him alive, for the sake of the love he once bore me.  But as for any answering love in my bosom, I have not one spark.  Tell him to go find a new mistress at St. Denis.  He might as well cry for the moon as seek to win Lorance de Montluc.”

“That may be true,” I said; “but all the same he will try.  Can mademoiselle suppose he will go out of Paris now, and leave her to marry Brie and Lorraine?”

“Only one,” she protested with the shadow of a smile; and then a sudden rush of tears blinded her.  “I am a very miserable girl,” she said woefully, “for I bring nothing but danger to those that love me.”

I dropped on my knees before her and kissed the hem of her dress.

“Ah, Felix,” she said, “if you really pitied me, you would get him out of Paris!” And she fell to weeping as if her heart would break.

I had no skill to comfort her.  I bent my head before her, silent.  At length she sobbed out: 

“It boots little for us to quarrel over what you shall say to M. de Mar, when we know not that you will ever speak to him again.  And it was all my fault.”

“Mademoiselle, it was the fault of my hasty tongue.”

But she shook her head.

“I maintained that to you, but it was not true.  Mayenne had something in his mind before.  A general holds his schemes so dear and lives so cheap.  But I will do my utmost, Felix, lad.  It is not long to daylight now.  I will go to Francois de Brie and we’ll believe I shall prevail.”

She took up her candle and said good night to me very gently and quietly, and gave me her hand to kiss.  She opened the door,—­with my fettered wrists I could not do the office for her,—­and on the threshold turned to smile on me, wistfully, hopefully.  In the next second, with a gasp that was half a cry, she blew out the light and pushed the door shut again.