Would the duke guess the hope with which I was going downstairs, I wondered.  I thought he did, for his eyes flashed slightly, and he stirred a little on the chest.

“Such a miracle, Monsieur,” he remarked, “would serve France greatly.  As a good son of the Church, I will pray for it with all my heart!”

“I hope to come back,” I went on, “and rejoin you.  But if I shouldn’t for any reason,”—­with careful vagueness,—­“you must stay here, barricaded, till they are gone.  Then Miss Falconer can drive her car to the nearest town and bring back help for you.  You see, it will be entirely simple, either way.”

The girl, very white now, took a swift step toward me.

“Simple?” she cried.  “They will kill you!  They hate you, Mr. Bayne, and they are four to one.  You mustn’t go.”

But the duke’s hand was on her arm.

“My dear,” he said, “he has reason.  This friend of yours, I perceive, is a gallant gentleman.  Believe me, if I had strength to stand, he would not go alone.”

He held out the papers to me, and I took them.  Then we clasped hands, the Firefly and I.

“Bonne chance, Monsieur,” he bade me with the pressure.

“Good luck and good-bye,” I answered.  “Miss Falconer, will you come to the door?”

She took up the candle and came forward to light me, and we went in silence through the room of the squires and through the ante-chamber and into the room of the guards.  She walked close beside me; her eyes shone wet; her lips trembled.  There were things I would have given the world to say, but I suppressed them.  To the very end, I had resolved, I would play fair.  We were at the outer door.

“Good-by, Miss Falconer,” I said, halting.  “You mustn’t worry; everything is going to turn out splendidly, I am sure.  Only, now that we have the papers, it ends our little adventure, doesn’t it?  So before I go I want to thank you for our day together.  It has been wonderful.  There never was another like it.  I shall always be thankful for it, no matter what I have to pay.”

I stopped abruptly, realizing that this was not cricket.  To make up, I put out my hand quite coolly; but she grasped it in both of hers and held it in a soft, warm clasp.

“I shall never forget,” she whispered.  “Come back to us, Mr. Bayne!”

For a moment I looked at her in the light of the candle, at her lovely face, at the ruddy hair framing it, at the tears heavy on her lashes.  Then I drew the bolt and went out and heard her fasten the door.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE OBUS

I stood in the gallery for an instant, indulging in a reconnoissance.  The hall was now illuminated by an electric torch and three guttering candles; at the foot of the staircase lay the table which had done such yeoman’s service, split in two.  As for the besiegers, they were gathered near the chimney-place in a worse-for-wear group, one nursing a nosebleed; another feeling gingerly of a loose tooth; Blenheim himself frankly raging, and decorated with a broad cut across his forehead and a cheek that was rapidly taking on assorted shades of blue, green, and black; and the redoubtable Mr. Schwartzmann, worst off of all, lying in a heap, groaning at intervals, but apparently quite unaware of what was going on.