St. Georges was not, however, destined to arrive at Marly on that night, nor to see Louis and lay his story before him.

On quitting Louvois he made his way swiftly along the corridor leading from the chamber on the ground floor in which he had been received to the courtyard, no interruption being attempted, as was natural enough, considering that he was leaving instead of seeking to enter the building. The soldiers, gendarmerie and the Suisses as well as the Mousquetaires Gris—whose turn it was at the present moment to be in attendance at the Louvre—were lounging about the guard room and the great gateway, and they not only did not offer any opposition to his passage, but, instead, seeing about him the signs of a cavalry officer—the gorget, long cut-and-thrust sword, great boots, and gantlets—saluted him.

Therefore he passed out into the street—since known in the present century as the Rue de Rivoli—and regained his horse from the guet in whose custody he had left it.

That he recognised the danger—the awful danger—in which he had now placed himself, who can doubt? He was a soldier, and he had threatened the assassination of the chief—under the king—of the army. Moreover, he was a soldier who had just been dismissed from that army for failing in his duty, for allowing private affairs—harrowing as they were!—to come between him and that duty. Now he was cooler; he became more clear sighted; he knew that he had done a thing which would destroy any claim that he might make for the king's sympathy with him.

"I am ruined," he murmured, looking up and down the street, not knowing which way to direct his horse's steps; "have ruined myself. Louis will never forgive this when he hears Louvois's story—never see me nor hear me. Fool, fool that I am! I have destroyed everything—above all, my one chance of regaining Dorine!"

What was he to do? That was the question he asked himself. He had, it was true, avoided instant arrest within the precincts of the palace, but how long could he avoid arrest in whatever part of Paris he might endeavour to shelter himself now?

"What have other men done," he pondered, "placed as I am—as I have placed myself? What shall I, a broken, ruined soldier, do? What? what? Turn bully, as he accused me of being, and cutthroat, bravo, or thief—haunter of gambling hells and tripots? No! no! no! I am a gentleman, have always lived like one; so let me continue to the end. Yet, what to do now?"

He threaded his way through the streets, still filled with their crowds of saltimbanques and quacks, though the fashionable world, having seen Le Roi Soleil, had gone or was going home, for the wintry evening was setting in. And as he rode slowly, for his poor beast was now quite spent, he tried to think of what he should do—go to Marly at once, that evening, as he had said to Louvois (although with scarcely the intention of doing so, since he doubted seeing the king without preparation), or find a roof for himself and a stall for his horse for the night.

Then he decided suddenly, promptly, that the former was what he would do. If he could get the king's ear first, before Louvois, he might save himself. Louis was great of heart, in spite of his childish belief in his kingly attributes, of his love of splendour, and his vanity. Who could tell? A word with him—above all, a word breathed as to whom St. Georges believed himself to be—and he was safe. His father had been Louis's companion; he would not slay the son. Safe—even though dismissed the army and stripped of his commission—able to stay in France, to return to Troyes, to seek and find his darling again!

He was resolved; he would go to Marly that night.

Only—how to get there. Marly lay beyond Versailles, four leagues from Paris, and his horse could go no further. The marvel was that it had done so much, and it was only by the most assiduous care and merciful treatment—by sometimes walking mile after mile by its side, and by resting it hourly—that St. Georges had been able to assist it to reach Paris. Now it could do no more.

However, ere long he espied an Écurie and found that the owner had horses for hire, while one, a red roan with a shifty eye and bright-blooded nostril, took St. Georges's fancy. He knew a good horse the moment he saw one, and read by this creature's points that it would be troublesome for the first mile, and then carry him swiftly for the remainder of his journey. So, leaving his own horse—though not before he had seen it attended to, fed, and rubbed down, and taken into a comfortable, fresh-littered stall—he set out once more, tired, worn, and travel-sore as he was, for his fresh destination. Yet he knew his object, if he could attain it, would be worth a hundred times the extra fatigue. And when it was attained he could rest. Time enough then.

The red roan behaved exactly as he expected it would: it first of all bounded half across the road when once he was in the saddle, knocking down a scaramouche and a toothdrawer in doing so—the latter, fortunately, having no customer in his hands at the moment; it next proceeded sideways up the street, and then, finding it had a master to deal with, danced along in a canter until the West Gate of Paris was reached, after which, and being now sure that its exuberance was useless, it settled down into a long, easy stride, and bore its rider as smoothly as a carriage might toward his goal.

The moon, which a few nights back had shown beneath its young rays the corpse hanging on the gibbet outside the city of Troyes, lit up now the road along which he passed, disturbing on his way sometimes a deer in a thicket, sometimes a scurrying rabbit—they disturbing, too, the fiery creature he bestrode, and frightening it into a swifter pace. Still, each moment brought him nearer to his destination, to the arbiter in whose hands his destiny was held; and, for the rest, he sat like a rock upon its back. Its gambades could not unseat him.

So the twelve English miles were nearly passed; he was on the new road that branched off to Marly—the strangest route that any man living in those days ever, perhaps, rode along. On either side it was bordered by small forests of enormous trees, mostly covered with dead branches, since these trees had died unnaturally long months ago, when transported from CompiÈgne to where they now stood. Also he saw beneath the moon's gleams fountains from which no water could be forced to flow—great basins to which water could not be brought, or only brought by depriving Versailles of its natural supply. Louis had thought that he could force Nature—uproot trees from one spot, where they had flourished for a hundred years and cause them to flourish equally well in another; had imagined that even the waters on which his gondolas, brought from Venice, might float, could be forced into existence at his command. It was a monstrous impertinence offered to Nature, and it cost him four million and a half of livres, with but little profit to any but the frogs and toads.

There rose now before his eyes—where the road branched off in different directions, on the right to Versailles, and, a little to the left, to Marly—the white-washed walls of an auberge known as Le Bon Pasteur, a place soon to be pulled down, since Louis had bought out the owner, and was about to build a pavilion upon it. But it stood up to this time untouched, as it had done since the days of Henri III—long, low, thatched, and weather-beaten, three old poplar trees in front of it, a mounting-block also, and, of course, the usual heap of filth by its side where the stables were.

Approaching it, he felt the roan stagger beneath him, halt in its strides, then falter; and, shrewd horseman as he was, knew that it had either cast a shoe, or had got a stone in one. And as he dismounted close by the inn, though still some twoscore yards from the mounting-block, he heard behind him the clatter of other hoofs coming on, and the light laugh of a woman, also the deeper tones of a man.

"Pasquedieu!" he heard the latter say—and started both at the exclamation and the voice—"you may laugh, ma mie, yet I tell you 'tis so. He will marry her, spend her money on other women as I spend mine on you—Morbleu! whom have we here?" and the man riding along the road with his female companion pulled up his own horse, as the woman did hers, on seeing another traveller dismounted by the side of, and examining, his animal.

"Whom?" exclaimed that traveller, looking up—"whom? One perhaps whom you know. One whose name is Georges St. Georges." Then, vaulting back into his saddle—not meaning to be taken at a disadvantage—he bent forward and looked into the newcomer's face. "Did you ever hear that name before, monsieur?" he asked.

The face into which he gazed was that of a young, good-looking man, close shaven and with gray eyes that looked at him, as he thought, with terror. He was well dressed, too, in a riding costume of the period, while the woman who sat her horse, peering at him out of the eyelets of her mask, was also smartly arrayed in a female riding coat of the day, her head covered with a hood.

"Answer, monsieur," said St. Georges.

"Never," the other replied. "How should I know the name of every—person—I meet on the road?"

St. Georges bent forward over his saddle so that his own face was now nearer by a foot to the man with the gray eyes; then he said:

"Monsieur de Roquemaure, you are a liar! And more, a thief, a kidnapper; also, a would-be assassin. I know you and this, your wanton, here. You have to answer to me to-night for all you have done against me and mine in the past two weeks."

"Mon Dieu!" he heard the woman hiss beneath her mask. "Kill him, Raoul, kill him! God! that you should let him live and utter such things!" And as she so hissed she leaned down and struck at his face with her riding whip.

"Hound!" she exclaimed, "you apply that word to me? To me?"

"The woman speaks well," St. Georges said, warding off the blow with his arm while his eye rested on her for a moment; "it is a matter of killing. Either you or I have to be killed. To-night! Do you hear, or are you struck dumb with fear?"

"No," the other replied, at last, with amazement. "Who are you who, under a name I know not, dare to assault me thus with such opprobrious words? Nay," turning to the masked woman, who was again muttering in his ear, "have no fear. I will have his blood for it. If he is a gentleman with whom I can cross swords, we fight ere another hour passes."

"Also," St. Georges broke in, "you are, I perceive, a coward, besides the other things I have charged you with. You know who I am well enough. If not—if your memory is as treacherous as your courage seems poor, let me remind you. I am the man whom you attacked with five others at Aignay-le-Duc; the man whose child you sought to slay; the father of the child whom your woman and your man-servant seized away from one who had it in his possession, and whom they slew also, you not appearing on the scene. You are careful of yourself, Monsieur de Roquemaure! In the first treacherous attack you shielded your head as none other's head was shielded; in the second you employed a woman and a man-servant to do that which, perhaps, you feared to do yourself."

Every word he uttered was studied insult, every word was weighed before it was delivered, substituted for any other which rose to his lips if not deemed by him sufficiently galling. He had sworn to kill this man if ever he encountered him again, and he meant to kill him to-night now he had met him. Therefore, since he was resolved he should have no loophole of escape from crossing swords with him, he so phrased his remarks that he must fight or acknowledge himself the veriest poltroon that breathed.

"But," he continued, "if you still value your hide so much that you dare not meet me, now at once, tell me where you and this woman—if it be the same, as I suppose—have hidden my child; lead me to her, and then you shall go free. Only choose, and choose at once."

He heard the woman mutter to De Roquemaure: "Who is the woman he speaks of, who, Raoul?" while also he saw her eyes glisten again through the mask; then, as he strove to catch her companion's reply, that companion turned on him, and said:

"Monsieur St. Georges, as you term yourself, be very sure I intend to slay you to-night. I do not know you, but your insults to me and to—this—lady, although the utterances of a madman, have to be wiped out at once. As to the child you mention, and its kidnapping by a servant of mine and a woman—bah!—I know not of what you speak."

"Do you deny that you are Monsieur de Roquemaure?"

"I neither deny nor assert. Under that name you have chosen to waylay and insult me. Under that name, since you will have it, I intend to have reparation."

"Do you deny the assault at Aignay-le-Duc?"

"I deny nothing, assert nothing."

"So be it," St. Georges said. "I have made no mistake. You are the man. Your voice, your expression condemn you. Your face, though you have shaved off your beard"—and he saw the other start as he mentioned this—"condemns, convicts you. Deny, therefore, these two things or draw your sword. We have wasted enough time."

"We have," the other answered, and as he spoke he dismounted from his horse, St. Georges doing the same.