I advanced to the middle window, which was open.  Then I started back, for outside was the scaffold built level with the floor, and rush-covered like it!  Two or three people were lounging on it.  My eyes sought Louis among the group, but in vain.  He was not there:  and while I looked for him, I heard a noise behind me, and he came in, guarded by four soldiers with pikes.

His face was pale and grave, but perfectly composed.  There was a wistful look in his eyes indeed, as if he were thinking of something or some one far away—­Kit’s face on the sunny hills of Quercy where he had ridden with her, perhaps; a look which seemed to say that the doings here were nothing to him, and the parting was yonder where she was.  But his bearing was calm and collected, his step firm and fearless.  When he saw us, indeed his face lightened a moment and he greeted us cheerfully, even acknowledging Bure’s salutation with dignity and good temper.  Croisette sprang towards him impulsively, and cried his name—­ Croisette ever the first to speak.  But before Louis could grasp his hand, the door at the bottom of the hall was swung open, and the Vidame came hurriedly in.

He was alone.  He glanced round, his forbidding face, which was somewhat flushed as if by haste, wearing a scowl.  Then he saw us, and, nodding haughtily, strode up the floor, his spurs clanking heavily on the boards.  We gave us no greeting, but by a short word dismissed Bure and the soldiers to the lower end of the room.  And then he stood and looked at us four, but principally at his rival; and looked, and looked with eyes of smouldering hate.  And there was a silence, a long silence, while the murmur of the crowd came almost cheerfully through the window, and the sparrows under the eaves chirped and twittered, and the heart that throbbed least painfully was, I do believe, Louis de Pavannes’!

At last Bezers broke the silence.

“M. de Pavannes!” he began, speaking hoarsely, yet concealing all passion under a cynical smile and a mock politeness, “M. de Pavannes, I hold the king’s commission to put to death all the Huguenots within my province of Quercy.  Have you anything to say, I beg, why I should not begin with you?  Or do you wish to return to the Church?”

Louis shrugged his shoulders as in contempt, and held his peace, I saw his captor’s great hands twitch convulsively at this, but still the Vidame mastered himself, and when he spoke again he spoke slowly.  “Very well,” he continued, taking no heed of us, the silent witnesses of this strange struggle between the two men, but eyeing Louis only.  “You have wronged me more than any man alive.  Alive or dead! or dead!  You have thwarted me, M. de Pavannes, and taken from me the woman I loved.  Six days ago I might have killed you.  I had it in my power.  I had but to leave you to the rabble, remember, and you would have been rotting at Montfaucon to-day, M. de Pavannes.”