The marshal took the illuminated copy of the Evangelists from the table and fanned her with the thin parchment leaves.

“Awake!” he cried harshly and sternly.

The eyes of the girl slowly opened their pupils dark and dilated.  She carried her hand to her head, but wearily, as if even that slight movement pained her.  The golden cross swung unseen under the silken folds of her apron.

“I am so tired—­so tired,” the girl murmured to herself as Gilles de Retz assisted her to rise.  Then hastily handing her over to Poitou, he bade him conduct her to her own chamber.

But as she went through the door of the marshal’s laboratory she looked upon the floor and smiled almost joyously.

“His devil has indeed departed from him,” she murmured to herself.  “I thank the God of Righteousness who this night hath enabled me to baffle him with a woman’s poor wit, and to lie to him that he may be led quick to destruction, and fall himself into the pit which he hath prepared for the feet of the innocent.”

CHAPTER LV

THE RED MILK

Darkly and swiftly the autumn night descended upon Machecoul.  In the streets of the little feudal bourg there were few passers-by, and such as there were clutched their cloaks tighter round them and scurried on.  Or if they raised their heads, it was only to take a hasty, fearful glance at the vast bulk of the castle looming imminent above them.

From a window high in the central keep a red light streamed out, and when the clouds flew low, strange dilated shadows were wont to be cast upon the rolling vapour.  Sometimes smoke, acrid and heavy, bellied forth, and anon wild cries of pain and agony floated down to silence the footfalls of the home-returning rustics and chill the hearts of burghers trembling in their beds.

But none dared to question in public the doings of the great and puissant lord of all the country of Retz.  It fared not well with him who even looked too much at the things which were done.

The night was yet darker up aloft in the Castle of Machecoul itself.  In the sacristy good Father Blouyn, with an air of resigned reluctance, was handing over to an emissary of his master the moulds in which the tall altar candles for the Chapel of the Holy Innocents were usually cast and compacted.  And as Clerk Henriet went out with the moulds he took a long look through a private spy-hole at the lads of the choir who were sitting in the hall apportioned to their use.  They were supposed to be busy with their lessons, and, indeed, a few were poring over their books with some show of studious absorption.  But for the most part they were playing at cards and dominos, or, in the absence of the master, sticking intimate pins and throwing about indiscriminate ink, according to the immemorial use of the choir-boy.

Clerk Henriet counted them twice over and in especial looked carefully to see what did the young Scots lad, who had so mysteriously escaped from the dread room of his master.  Laurence MacKim played X’s and O’s upon a board with Blaise Renouf, the precentor’s son, and at some hitch in the game he incontinently clouted the Frenchman upon the ear.  Whereupon ensued trouble and the spilling of much ink.