“I have Mayenne’s word,” I began, but his retort was to draw dagger.  I deemed it time to stop parleying, and I did what the best of soldiers must do sometimes:  I ran.  I bounded into the oratory, flinging the door to after me.  He was upon it before I could get it shut, and the heavy oak was swung this way and that between us, till it seemed as if we must tear it off the hinges.  I contrived not to let him push it open wide enough to enter; meantime, as I was unarmed, I thought it no shame to shriek for succour.  I heard an answering cry and hurrying footsteps.  Then Lucas took his weight from the door so suddenly that mine banged it shut.  The next minute it flew open again, mademoiselle, frightened and panting, on the threshold.

A tall soldier with a musket stood at her back; at one side Lucas lounged by the cabinet where the duke had set down the light.  His right hand he held behind his back, while with his left he poked his dagger into the candle-flame.

Mayenne, red and puffing, hurried into the room.

“What is the pother?” he demanded.  “What devilment now, Paul?”

“Mademoiselle’s protege is nervous,” Lucas answered with a fine sneer.  “When I drew out my knife to get the thief from the candle he screamed to wake the dead and took sanctuary in the oratory.”

I had given him the lie then and there, but as I emerged from the darkness Mayenne commanded: 

“Take him out to the street, d’Auvray.”

The tall musketeer, saluting, motioned me to precede him.  For a moment I hesitated, burning to defend my valour before mademoiselle.  Then, reflecting how much harm my hasty tongue had previously done me, and that the path to freedom was now open before me, I said nothing.  Nor had I need.  For as I turned she flashed over to Lucas and said straight in his face: 

“When you marry me, Paul de Lorraine, you will marry a dead wife.”

XVII

"I’ll win my lady!"

Lucas’s prophecy came to grief within five minutes of the making.  For when the musketeer unbarred the house door for me, the first thing I saw was the morning sun.

My spirits danced at sight of him, as he himself might dance on Easter day.  Within the close, candle-lit room I had had no thought but that it was still black midnight; and now at one step I passed from the gloomy house into the heartening sunshine of a new clean day.  I ran along as joyously as if I had left the last of my troubles behind me, forgotten in some dark corner of the Hotel de Lorraine.  Always my heart lifts when, after hours within walls, I find myself in the open again.  I am afraid in houses, but out of doors I have no fear of harm from any man or any thing.