Sybilla went to the door and stood again by the curtain.

“Then you swear by your own God that you will let no evil befall the Scottish maids?” she said.

“I have told you already—­let that suffice!” he replied with sudden coldness; “you know that, like the Master whom I serve, I can keep my word.  I will not harm them, so long as their Scottish kinsfolk come not hither meddling with my purposes.  I have enough of meddlers in France without adding outlanders thereto!  I cannot keep a new and permanent danger at grass within my gates.”

The Lady Sybilla passed through the portal by which she had entered, without adieu or leave-taking of any kind.  Gilles de Retz rose as soon as the curtain had fallen, and shook himself with a yawn, like one who has got through a troublesome necessary duty.  Then he walked to the window and looked out.  The woman had come back and was kneeling before the Hotel de Pornic.

[Illustration:  A BRIGHT LIGHT AS OF A FURNACE BURNT UP BEFORE HIM, AND THE HEAT WAS OVERPOWERING AS IT RUSHED LIKE A RUDDY TIDE-RACE AGAINST HIS FACE.]

At sight of him she cried with sudden shrillness, “My lord, my great lord, give me back my child—­my little Pierre.  He is my heart’s heart.  My lord, he never did you any harm in all his innocent life!”

The Marshal de Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against the vulgarity of prejudice.  He did not notice four men in the garb of pilgrims who stood in the dark of a doorway opposite.

“This is both unnecessary and excessively discomposing,” he muttered; “I fear Poitou has not been judicious enough in his selections.”

He turned towards the private door, and as he did so Astarte the she-wolf rose and silently followed him with her head drooped forward.  He went along a dark passage and pushed open a little iron door.  A bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.

“Well, Poitou, does it go better?” he said cheerfully, “or must we try them of the other sex and somewhat younger, as I at first proposed?”

He let the door slip back, and the action of a powerful spring shut out Astarte.  Whereat she sat down on her haunches in the dark of the passage, and showed her gleaming teeth in a grin, as, with cocked ears, she listened to the sounds from within the secret laboratory of the Marshal de Retz.

CHAPTER XLIII

MALISE FETCHES A CLOUT

The four men whom the Messire Gilles, by good fortune, failed to see standing in the doorway opposite the Hotel de Pornic were attired in the habit of pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella.  Upon their heads they wore broad corded hats of brown.  Long brown robes covered them from head to foot.  Their heads were tonsured, and as they went along they fumbled at their beads and gave their benediction to the people that passed by, whether they returned them an alms or not.  This they did by spreading abroad the fingers of both hands and inclining their heads, at the same time muttering to themselves in a tongue which, if not Latin, was at least equally unknown to the good folk of Paris.