He came a step nearer, and laying a hand on my sleeve peered into my face.  “Did you see a priest with her?” he asked slowly.  “A man called the Coadjutor—­a down-looking dog?”

I said—­with a shiver of dread, a sudden revulsion of feeling, born of his manner—­that I had.  And I explained the part the priest had taken.

“Then,” Pavannes rejoined, “I am right There is a trap laid for me.  The Abbess of the Ursulines!  She abduct my wife?  Why, she is her dearest friend, believe me.  It is impossible.  She would be more likely to save her from danger than to—­umph! wait a minute.”  I did:  I waited, dreading what he might discover, until he muttered, checking himself—­“Can that be it?  Can it be that the Abbess did know of some danger threatening us, and would have put Madeleine in a safe retreat?  I wonder!”

And I wondered; and then—­well, thoughts are like gunpowder.  The least spark will fire a train.  His words were few, but they formed spark enough to raise such a flare in my brain as for a moment blinded me, and shook me so that I trembled.  The shock over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness such as I could never have suspected of myself.  I remembered Mirepoix’s distress and the priest’s eagerness.  I re-called the gruff warning Bezers—­even Bezers, and there was something very odd in Bezers giving a warning!—­had given Madame de Pavannes when he told her that she would be better where she was.  I thought of the wakefulness which I had marked in the streets, the silent hurrying to and fro, the signs of coming strife, and contrasted these with the quietude and seeming safety of Mirepoix’s house; and I hastily asked Pavannes at what time he had been arrested.

“About an hour before midnight,” he answered.

“Then you know nothing of what is happening?” I replied quickly.  “Why, even while we are loitering here—­but listen!”

And with all speed, stammering indeed in my haste and anxiety, I told him what I had noticed in the streets, and the hints I had heard, and I showed him the badges with which Madame had furnished me.

His manner when he had heard me out frightened me still more.  He drew me on in a kind of fury to a house in the windows of which some lighted candles had appeared not a minute before.

“The ring!” he cried, “let me see the ring!  Whose is it?”

He held up my hand to this chance light and we looked at the ring.  It was a heavy gold signet, with one curious characteristic:  it had two facets.  On one of these was engraved the letter “H,” and above it a crown.  On the other was an eagle with outstretched wings.

Pavannes let my hand drop and leaned against the wall in sudden despair.  “It is the Duke of Guise’s,” he muttered.  “It is the eagle of Lorraine.”

“Ha!” said I softly, seeing light.  The Duke was the idol then, as later, of the Parisian populace, and I understood now why the citizen soldiers had shown me such respect.  They had taken me for the Duke’s envoy and confidant.