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 pair of stairs and break your neck in the street! Yes—I think I can trust you."

Malletort laughed pleasantly. "Your Highness's ethics are like my own," said he. "There is no tie so close as self-*interest, and it is certainly none the looser when accompanied by inclination. I trust the events of to-night will render it yet more binding on us both."

"Have you prepared everything?" asked the Regent, with anxiety. "The slightest omission might be not only inconvenient, but dangerous."

"I have but a short note to write," answered the Abbé, "and I can accomplish that while your Highness finishes dressing. It must be sealed with the arms of the royal Body-guard, and you may believe I have no such uncanonical trinkets in my possession."

The Duke looked in a drawer and shook his head. Then he called a valet, who appeared from the adjoining chamber.

"Go to the officer of the guard," said he, "and ask him for the regimental seal. Say it is for me."

The man returned almost immediately, indeed before the Abbé had finished a note on which he was engaged, writing it slowly and with great care.

"Who is on guard?" he asked, carelessly, while the servant set the massive seal on the table.

"Monsieur George," was the answer, "Captain of the Company of Grey Musketeers."

The Abbé did not look up, but continued assiduously bent over his task, smiling the while as at some remarkable and whimsical coincidence.

When he had folded his letter carefully, and secured it with the military seal, he begged his Highness, in a tone of great simplicity, to lend him an orderly.

"As many as you please," answered the Regent; "but may I ask the nature of a missive that requires so warlike a messenger?"

"It is a challenge," answered the Abbé, and they both laughed heartily; nor was their mirth diminished when the required orderly, standing gaunt and rigid in the doorway, turned out to be the oldest, the fiercest, and the ugliest veteran in the whole Body-guard.

The sun was now declining, and it would soon be dusk.