Louis de Pavannes’ wife!  Louis de Pavannes married!  If the statement were true—­and we could not doubt, looking in her face, that at least she thought she was telling the truth—­it meant that we had been fooled indeed!  That we had had this journey for nothing, and run this risk for a villain.  It meant that the Louis de Pavannes who had won our boyish admiration was the meanest, the vilest of court-gallants.  That Mademoiselle de Caylus had been his sport and plaything.  And that we in trying to be beforehand with Bezers had been striving to save a scoundrel from his due.  It meant all that, as soon as we grasped it in the least.

“Madame,” said Croisette gravely, after a pause so prolonged that her smile faded pitifully from her face, scared by our strange looks.  “Your husband has been some time away from you?  He only returned, I think, a week or two ago?”

“That is so,” she answered, naively, and our last hope vanished.  “But what of that?  He was back with me again, and only yesterday—­only yesterday!” she continued, clasping her hands, “we were so happy.”

“And now, madame?”

She looked at me, not comprehending.

“I mean,” I hastened to explain, “we do not understand how you come to be here.  And a prisoner.”  I was really thinking that her story might throw some light upon ours.

“I do not know, myself,” she said.  “Yesterday, in the afternoon, I paid a visit to the Abbess of the Ursulines.”

“Pardon me,” Croisette interposed quickly, “but are you not of the new faith?  A Huguenot?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered eagerly.  “But the Abbess is a very dear friend of mine, and no bigot.  Oh, nothing of that kind, I assure you.  When I am in Paris I visit her once a week.  Yesterday, when I left her, she begged me to call here and deliver a message.”

“Then,” I said, “you know this house?”

“Very well, indeed,” she replied.  “It is the sign of the ’Hand and Glove,’ one door out of the Rue Platriere.  I have been in Master Mirepoix’s shop more than once before.  I came here yesterday to deliver the message, leaving my maid in the street, and I was asked to come up stairs, and still up until I reached this room.  Asked to wait a moment, I began to think it strange that I should be brought to so wretched a place, when I had merely a message for Mirepoix’s ear about some gauntlets.  I tried the door; I found it locked.  Then I was terrified, and made a noise.”

We all nodded.  We were busy building up theories—­or it might be one and the same theory—­to explain this.  “Yes,” I said, eagerly.

“Mirepoix came to me then.  ‘What does this mean?’ I demanded.  He looked ashamed of himself, but he barred my way.  ‘Only this,’ he said at last, ’that your ladyship must remain here a few hours—­two days at most.  No harm whatever is intended to you.  My wife will wait upon you, and when you leave us, all shall be explained.’  He would say no more, and it was in vain I asked him if he did not take me for some one else; if he thought I was mad.  To all he answered, No.  And when I dared him to detain me he threatened force.  Then I succumbed.  I have been here since, suspecting I know not what, but fearing everything.”