but remained in his pose, buried in thought, unaware of our presence.  To get out, we had to walk round one end or the other of the table, passing either before or behind him.  M. le Comte was for marching carelessly before his face, but I pulled so violently in the other direction that he gave way to me.  I think now that had we passed in front of him, Lucas would have let us go by without a look.  As it was, hearing steps at his back, he wheeled about to confront us.  If the eye of love is quick, so is the eye of hate.  He cried out instantly: 

“Mar!”

We dropped the box, and sprang at him.  But he was too quick for us.  He leaped back, whipping out his sword.

“I have you now, Mar!” he cried.

M. Etienne grabbed up the heavy box in both hands to brain him.  Lucas retreated.  He might run through M. Etienne, but only at the risk of having his head split.  After all, it suited his book as well to take us alive.  Shouting for the guards, he retreated toward the door.

But I was there before him.  As he ran at M. Etienne, I had dashed by, slammed the door shut, and bolted it.  If we were caught, we would make a fight for it.  I snatched up a stool for weapon.

He halted.  Then he darted over to the chimney, and pulled violently the bell-rope hanging near.  We heard through the closed door two loud peals somewhere in the corridor.

We both ran for him.  Even as he pulled the rope, M. Etienne struck the box over his sword, snapping it.  I dropped my stool, as he his box, and we pinned Lucas in our arms.

“The oratory!” I gasped.  With a strength born of our desperation, we dragged him kicking and cursing across the room, heaved him with all our force into the oratory, and bolted the door on him.

“Your wig!” cried M. Etienne, running to recover his box.  While I picked it up and endeavoured with clumsy fingers to put it on properly, he set on its legs the stool I had flung down, threw the pieces of Lucas’s sword into the fireplace, seized his box, dashed to me and set my wig straight, dashed to the outer door, and opened it just as Pierre came up the corridor.

“Well, what do you want?” the lackey demanded.  “You ring as if it was a question of life and death.”

“I want to be shown out, if the messer will be so kind.  His Highness the duke, when he went to supper, left me here to put up my wares, but I know not my way to the door.”

It was after sunset, and the room, back from the windows, was dusky.  The lackey seemed not to mark our flushed and rumpled looks, and to be quite satisfied with M. Etienne’s explanation, when of a sudden Lucas, who had been stunned for the moment by the violent meeting of his head and the tiles, began to pound and kick on the oratory door.

He was shouting as well.  But the door closed with absolute tightness; it had not even a keyhole.  His cries came to us muffled and inarticulate.