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142 Now they troubled him so that he started at a shadow, so that he quailed at a thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had timed his coming and her rescue to a minute! Who had rejoiced in the peril, since with the glamour of such things foolish women were taken! Who had not flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her blood!

Why had he suffered himself to be trapped? Why indeed? And thrice in passion he paced the room. Long ago the famous Nostradamus had told him that he would live to be a king, but of the smallest kingdom in the world. “Every man is a king in his coffin,” he had answered. “The grave is cold and your kingdom shall be warm,” the wizard had rejoined. On which the courtiers had laughed, promising him a Moorish island and a black queen. And he had gibed with the rest, but secretly had taken note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers and their heirs. Now he held the thought in horror, foreseeing no county, but the cage under the stifling tiles at Loches, in which Cardinal Balue and many another had worn out their hearts.

He came to that thought not by way of his own peril, but of Mademoiselle’s; which affected him in so novel a fashion that he wondered at his folly. At last, tired of watching the shadows which the draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak about him and lay down on the straw. He had kept vigil the previous night, and in a few minutes, with a campaigner’s ease, he was asleep.

Midnight had struck. About two the light in the lanthorn burned low in the socket, and with a soft sputtering went out. For an hour after that the room lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn, the greyer for the river mist which wrapped the neighbourhood in a clammy shroud, began to creep into the room and discover the vague shapes of things. Again an hour passed, and