He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at this, seeing the tears gather in her eyes, he forced a laugh.

“Why, you are as bad as M. de Rosny and the Vidame!” he said.  “And they are as full of fears as an egg is of meat!  Since the Admiral was wounded by that scoundrel on Friday, they think all Paris is in a league against us.”

“And why not?” she asked, her cheek grown pale, her eyes reading his eyes.

“Why not?  Why, because it is a monstrous thing even to think of!” Tignonville answered, with the confidence of one who did not use the argument for the first time.  “Could they insult the King more deeply than by such a suspicion?  A Borgia may kill his guests, but it was never a practice of the Kings of France!  Pardieu, I have no patience with them!  They may lodge where they please, across the river, or without the walls if they choose, the Rue de l’Arbre Sec is good enough for me, and the King’s name sufficient surety!”

“I know you are not apt to be fearful,” she answered, smiling; and she looked at him with a woman’s pride in her lover.  “All the same, you will not desert me again, sir, will you?”

He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked into her eyes; then melting to her, stammering, blundering, he named Madame St. Lo.  She stopped him.

“There is no need,” she said, answering his look with kind eyes, and refusing to hear his protestations.  “In a fortnight will you not be my husband?  How should I distrust you?  It was only that while she talked, I waited—­I waited; and—­and that Madame St. Lo is Count Hannibal’s cousin.  For a moment I was mad enough to dream that she held you on purpose.  You do not think it was so?”

“She!” he cried sharply; and he winced, as if the thought hurt him.  “Absurd!  The truth is, Mademoiselle,” he continued with a little heat, “you are like so many of our people!  You think a Catholic capable of the worst.”

“We have long thought so at Vrillac,” she answered gravely.

“That’s over now, if people would only understand.  This wedding has put an end to all that.  But I’m harking back,” he continued awkwardly; and he stopped.  “Instead, let me take you home.”

“If you please.  Carlat and the servants should be below.”

He took her left hand in his right after the wont of the day, and with his other hand touching his sword-hilt, he led her down the staircase, that by a single turn reached the courtyard of the palace.  Here a mob of armed servants, of lacqueys, and footboys, some bearing torches, and some carrying their masters’ cloaks and galoshes, loitered to and fro.  Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant, or a trifle less occupied with his own importance, he might have noted more than one face which looked darkly on him; he might have caught more than one overt sneer at his expense.  But in the business of summoning Carlat—­Mademoiselle de Vrillac’s