Count Hannibal

"It was a private blow," he said, answering her unspoken thought. "It is

like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what is the King's

will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. It will not

happen again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards"--they were

passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,

abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings--"whom the

King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."

"Cosseins?" she repeated. "But I thought Cosseins--"

"Was not wont to love us!" Tignonville answered, with a confident

chuckle. "He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills,

Mademoiselle. He was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all."

"I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she murmured. She felt

impelled to say it.

"Not it!" he answered confidently. "Why should it?"

They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, at the corner of the

Rue St. Honore opposite the Croix du Tiroir; which rose shadowy in the

middle of the four ways. He hammered on the door.

"But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the change is sudden, is it

not? The King was not wont to be so good to us!"

"The King was not King until now," he answered warmly. "That is what I

am trying to persuade our people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may

sleep without fear; and early in the morning I will be with you. Carlat,

have a care of your mistress until morning, and let Madame lie in her

chamber. She is nervous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God

keep you, and pleasant dreams!"

He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed it; and the door being

open he would have turned away. But she lingered as if unwilling to

enter.

"There is--do you hear it--a stir in that quarter?" she said, pointing

across the Rue St. Honore. "What lies there?"

"Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis nothing. They say, you

know, that Paris never sleeps. Good night, sweet, and a fair awakening!"

She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes' eye. And still she

lingered, keeping him.

"Are you going to your lodging at once?" she asked--for the sake, it

seemed, of saying something.

"I?" he answered a little hurriedly. "No, I was thinking of paying

Rochefoucauld the compliment of seeing him home. He has taken a new

lodging to be near the Admiral; a horrid bare place in the Rue Bethizy,

without furniture, but he would go into it to-day. And he has a sort of

claim on my family, you know."