le Capitain, is there another St. Bartholomew, that people
choose my apartments for refuge?"
"This time it is not certain that the fugitive is here," replied Captain
de l'Archant, of the bodyguard. "He is known to have been in the palace
this morning, and no one answering his description has been seen to leave
by any of the gates. It was, indeed, a most sudden and mysterious
disappearance; and it is thought that he has run to cover in some chamber
or other. We are looking everywhere."
"Who is the man?" asked Marguerite, in a tone of indifference.
"M. de la Tournoire, of the French Guards."
"Very well. Look where you please. If he came into my apartments, he must
have done so while I attended the _petite levee_ of the King; otherwise I
should have seen him. What are you looking at? The door of that closet?
He could not have gone there without my knowledge. One of the maids
locked it the other day, and the key has disappeared." Whereupon, she
tried the door, herself, as if in proof of her assertion.
"Then he cannot be there," said De L'Archant, deceived by her manner; and
he took his leave.
For some minutes I heard nothing but the monotonous voice of Marguerite
as she read aloud to herself from her "Book of Hours."
Then she opened my door again. Through the tiny crack I saw a part
of her head.
"Monsieur," she said to me, keeping her eyes upon the book, and retaining
the same changeless tone of one reading aloud, "you see that you are
safe, for the present.
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