“Then you, monsieur, were a Leaguer?”

“Nay, I was not!” he cried.  “To my credit,—­or my shame, as you choose,—­I was not.  I was neither one nor the other, neither fish nor flesh.  My father thought me a Leaguer, but I was not.  I was not disloyal, in deed at least, to the house that bore me.  Monsieur reviled me for a skulker, a faineant; nom de diable, he might have remembered his own three years of idleness!”

“Monsieur held out for his religion—­”

“Mademoiselle is my religion,” he cried, and then laughed, not merrily.

“Pardieu! for all my pains I have not won her.  I have skulked and evaded and temporized—­for nothing.  I would not join the League and break my father’s heart; would not stand out against it and lose Lorance.  I have been trying these three years to please both the goat and the cabbage—­with the usual ending.  I have pleased nobody.  I am out of Mayenne’s books:  he made me overtures and I refused him.  I am out of my father’s books:  he thinks me a traitor and parricide.  And I am out of mademoiselle’s:  she despises me for a laggard.  Had I gone in with Mayenne I had won her.  Had I gone with Monsieur I was sure of a command in King Henry’s army.  But I, wanting both, get neither.  Between two stools, I fall miserably to the ground.  I am but a dawdler, a do-nothing, the butt and laughing-stock of all brave men.

“But I am done with shilly-shally!” he added, catching his breath.  “For once I shall do something.  Mlle. de Montluc has given me a last chance.  She has sent for me, and I go.  If I fall dead on her threshold, I at least die looking at her.”

“Monsieur, monsieur,” I cried in despair, “you will not die looking at her, for you will die out here in the street, and that will profit neither you nor her, but only Lucas and his crew.”

“That is as may be.  At least I make the attempt.  A month back I sent her a letter.  I found it to-night in Lucas’s doublet.  She thinks me careless of her.  I must go.”

“Monsieur, you are mad,” I cried.  “You have said yourself Mayenne is likely to be behind Lucas.  If you go you do but walk into the enemies’ very jaws.  It is a trap, a lure.”

“Felix, beware what you say!” he interrupted with quick-blazing ire.  “I do not permit such words to be spoken in connection with Mlle. de Montluc.”

“But, monsieur—­”

“Silence!” he commanded in a voice as sharp as crack of pistolet.  The St. Quentins had ever the most abundant faith in those they loved.  I remembered how Monsieur in just such a blaze of resentment had forbidden me to speak ill of his son.  And I remembered, too, that Monsieur’s faith had been justified and that my accusations were lies.  Natheless, I liked not the look of this affair, and I attempted further warnings.

“Monsieur, in my opinion—­”

“You are not here to hold opinions, Felix, but your tongue.”

I did, at that, and stood back from the bed to let him do as it liked him.  He rose and went over to the chair where his clothes lay, only to drop into it half swooning.  I ran to the ewer and dashed half the water in it into his face.