“Madame,” he asked, “have I not met you somewhere in wide and beautiful France?”

“France is wide, as you say.  I do not recollect having seen you before taking passage on the Henri IV.”

He felt instinctively that she had immediately erected a barrier between them; not from her words, but from their hidden sense.  He at once turned to Anne and recounted an anecdote relating to her distinguished grandsire.  But covertly he watched madame; watched the half-drooping eyelids, the shadow of a dimple in her left cheek, the curving throat, the shimmering ringlet which half obscured the perfect ear.  He had seen this face before, or one as like it as the reflection of the moon upon placid water is like the moon itself.  Now and then he frowned, remembering his purpose.  But why was this young woman, who was fit to grace a palace, why was she here incognito?  Ah!

“Madame, have you met Monsieur le Chevalier du Cevennes, my son?”

Anne trembled for her friend.

“I have noticed him, Monsieur.  Is he anything like you, as you were in your youth?” It was admirable, but not even Anne dreamed of the delicacy of the thread which held together madame’s tones.

“Modesty compels me to remain silent,” replied the marquis.

“And how goes Mazarin’s foreign policy?” asked De Lauson.

“Politics is a weed which I have cast out of my garden, your Excellency,” said the marquis, laughing.

Madame had a grateful thought for the governor, and she regretted that she could not express it aloud.  He had changed the current from a dangerous channel.

It was the marquis who opened the door for the ladies; it was the marquis who said good night with an inflection which gave it a new meaning; it was the marquis who intruded into madame’s thoughts, causing her partly to forget the letter and the broken sentence of D’Herouville’s.

“What an extraordinary man he is, that marquis!” was Anne’s comment as they mounted the stairs.

“Monsieur le Chevalier has yet a good deal to learn from his father.  See the moon, Anne; how beautiful it is!”

“Your Excellency,” began the marquis, resuming his seat, “where may I find Monsieur le Comte d’Herouville this evening?”

“I am at a loss to say,” was the reply, “unless he is at the hospital, which I understand he left this day.”

“He is not here at the chateau, then?”

“Not at my invitation,” tersely.  “I will, however, undertake to find him for you.”

“I shall be grateful.”

So the governor despatched an orderly, who returned within half an hour with the information that Monsieur le Comte was waiting in the citadel’s parade.  The marquis rose.

“Monsieur, my thanks; your Excellency will excuse me, as I have something important to say to Monsieur d’Herouville.”

It was only when the marquis was leaving the hall that the governor noticed the basket-hilt of the old man’s dueling sword.  Its formidable length disquieted his Excellency more than he would have liked to confess.