Mayenne was still holding out his hand for her.

“I wish you sweet dreams, my cousin Lorance.”

“Monsieur,” she cried, shrinking back till she stood against the door-jamb, “will you not let the boy go?”

“How will you look to-morrow,” he said with his unchanged smile, “if you lose all your sleep to-night, my pretty Lorance?”

“A reproach to you,” she answered quickly.  “You will mark my white cheeks and my red eyes, and you will say, ’Now, there is my little cousin Lorance, my good ally Montluc’s daughter, and I have made her cry her eyes blind over my cruelty.  Her father, dying, gave her to me to guard and cherish, and I have made her miserable.  I am sorry.  I wish I had not done it.’”

“Mademoiselle,” the duke repeated, “will you get to your bed?”

She did not stir, but, fixing him with her brilliant eyes, went on as if thinking aloud.

“I remember when I was a tiny maid of five or six, and you and your brother Guise (whom God rest!) would come to our house.  You would ask my father to send for me as you sat over your wine, and I would run in to kiss you and be fed comfits from your pockets.  I thought you the handsomest and gallantest gentleman in France, as indeed you were.”

“You were the prettiest little creature ever was,” Mayenne said abruptly.

“And my little heart was bursting with love and admiration of you,” she returned.  “When I first could lisp, I learned to pray for my cousin Henri and my cousin Charles.  I have never forgotten them one night in all these years.  ’God receive and bless the soul of Henri de Guise; God guard and prosper Charles de Mayenne.’  But you make it hard for me to ask it for my cousin Charles.”

“This is a great coil over a horse-boy,” Mayenne said curtly.

“Life is as dear to a horse-boy as to M. le Duc de Mayenne.”

“I tell you I did not mean to kill the boy,” Mayenne said.  “With the door shut he could hear nothing.  I meant to question him and let him go.  But you have seen fit to meddle in what is no maid’s business, mademoiselle.  You have unlocked the door and let him listen to my concerns.  Dead men, mademoiselle, tell no tales.”

“M. de Mayenne,” she said, “I cannot see that you need trouble for the tales of boys—­you, the lord of half France.  But if you must needs fear his tongue, why, even then you should set him free.  He is but a serving-boy sent here with a message.  It is wanton murder to take his life; it is like killing a child.”

“He is not so harmless as you would lead one to suppose, mademoiselle,” the duke retorted.  “Since you have been eavesdropping, you have heard how he upset your cousin Paul’s arrangements.”

“For that you should be thankful to him, monsieur.  He has saved you the stain of a cowardly crime.”

“Mordieu!” Mayenne exclaimed, “who foully murdered my brother?”

“The Valois.”