"Say to Mademoiselle de Vesc that Monsieur d'Argenton requires to speak with her in the Hercules room." It was the Judge who spoke. Already Commines stood in Louis' place to search, sift, find, and his tone was as cold and curt as the words were brusque. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "You can say, too, that Monsieur La Mothe is with him."

"No," said La Mothe; "omit that part of it."

For a moment Commines hesitated, annoyed by a tone curter and colder than his own, but after a glance at La Mothe's set face he motioned to the servant to go. That was not the moment to precipitate a conflict.

"Stephen, why not? It is the truth."

"Great heavens! do we want the truth?" answered La Mothe.

"But we are not friendly, she and I, and she may not come; you said so yourself. Remember, we must have no scandal, no publicity."

"Yes, what you have to do will be best done in the dark."

"Stephen, be just. You know I mean that Saxe's story is not one to be blazed abroad. Besides, nothing will be done to-night."

"But to-morrow, or next day?"

"It was not for the Dauphin's sake you risked your life this afternoon."

"That is quite true. It was for Mademoiselle de Vesc, and it may be risked again."

"Stephen, what do you mean?" But La Mothe, striding ahead as if impatient to face the issue and have done with uncertainties, returned no answer. There could be no answer until he saw how events fell out.

The Hercules chamber was named after the tapestry which hid the dull grey plaster of its walls. From the one door—and that there should be but one was unusual in an age when to provide for the strategy of retreat was common prudence—where the infant Hero strangled with chubby hands the twin serpents sent for his destruction, the story of his labours told itself with all the direct simplicity of medieval art.

No chronology was followed, the embroiderer having chosen her scenes at pleasure or as the exigencies of space demanded. Here, Samson-like, he tore the Numean lion jaw from jaw, his knee sunk in the shaggy chest, his shoulders ripped to the bone as the hooked claws gripped the muscles, his mighty torso a dripping crimson in the scheme of colour. There he cleansed the Augean stable in a faithfulness of detail more admirable in its approach to nature than its appeal to the sensibilities, the artist having left nothing to the imagination; beyond was the more human note, and Omphale bound him to her by a single thread stronger than all the chains ever riveted in Vulcan's forge. Next, with perhaps a significance of symbolism, the shirt of Nessus tortured him to madness with its scorching fires till the huge limbs writhed and the broad, kindly face was all a-sweat with agony, but—and now it was the door again—the benediction of peace crowned the end. The labours, the sorrows, the fiery trials were behind the back for ever, the faults and failures were forgiven or atoned for; after the stress of toil, the weariness of struggle, came the blessedness of rest; after humanity, divinity and the imperishable glory of high Olympus. Crude in its art, angular in its execution, there still was something of the soul of the worker stitched with the canvas. To Stephen La Mothe, touched at times by a poet's comprehension, it seemed not altogether a myth,—a type, perhaps; only, being very human, he hungered with a bitter hunger for the crowning of the peace and the divinity of love while life was life. It requires a robust faith to believe that Olympus can bring anything better than the best of earth.

A carved oak bench, black with age, stood beneath the centre of the three narrow windows piercing the outer wall; a four-branched copper lamp gave light from the polished table in the middle of the room; here and there, flanking the oaken bench, at the ends of the room, and at either side of the wide fireplace, were chairs and stools. A few wolfskin rugs dotted the floor. Villon and Saxe had not yet arrived.

"Mademoiselle begs that she may be excused to-night; she is very tired."

"But she cannot be excused," began Commines, when La Mothe intervened.

"Say that Monsieur La Mothe very greatly regrets she should be disturbed when so weary, but as it is of importance to Monseigneur he trusts she will excuse Monsieur d'Argenton's importunity."

"I told you how it would be," said Commines as the servant left the room, "you might as well have given your name first as last."

But La Mothe shook his head. "There is a difference, and she will understand." Then the restraint he had put upon himself with so much difficulty snapped for a moment: "Uncle, for God's sake, be gentle with her."

"I will be all I dare, but I trust neither Saxe nor Villon," and as he spoke the two entered the room.

In spite of a strong effort at self-control the inn-keeper was visibly ill at ease, while Villon, on his part, was complacently, almost offensively, cheerful. In a characteristic Puckish humour he had played alternately on Saxe's hopes and fears, but refusing all definite information beyond the bare statement that Monsieur d'Argenton had sent for him peremptorily. Why? How could Francois Villon say why? He was no confidant of the Lord High Jackal of all the King's jackals. Saxe, who was so friendly with couriers from Valmy, should know why. Perhaps, humble though he, Jean Saxe, was, he had rendered the King some service of late? and at the hint Saxe glowed, with expectation. Who was so generous a paymaster as Louis! Perhaps, on the other hand,—and the wrinkles of Villon's many wrinkled face deepened into puckers,—Jean Saxe knew too much. That was dangerous. Amboise was like Valmy, more entered than came out. Louis had many ways of paying debts. There was Guy de Molembrais, for instance——, but Saxe was frankly sweating and Villon broke off. The second hint was clearer even than the first, and Saxe felt that both were true.

But when he would have spoken Commines impatiently motioned him to be quiet, flinging a "Wait!" at him as one might a command to a restless dog, and at the evil augury the drops gathered anew round the edge of his close-cropped hair; gathered and swelled until they trickled down the cunning, stupid face. Villon, he noticed, and found another evil significance in the act, drew away from him, leaving him solitary just when the warm nearness of human kind would have been a comfort.

They had not long to wait. Hearing a movement in the passage Villon threw open the door, closing it again behind Ursula de Vesc. Then he leaned against it like one interested but indifferent in his interest. The girl was pitifully pale. Double lines of care creased the smoothness of the forehead; the weariness she had plead had been no pretence, but was written plainly in the languid gait, the drooped lids, and the dark patches beneath the eyes. By her side walked Charlemagne, and half a yard behind the three puppies trotted sleepily, Charlot lagging last; even in his anxious preoccupation La Mothe noticed it was Charlot, the best beloved of the three because it was the weakest.

Her first glance was for La Mothe, her second, and this time she bowed slightly, was towards Commines, then it fell upon Saxe, and the brows were raised in a mute interrogation, but there was neither apprehension nor dismay. Stepping forward La Mothe placed a chair beside the table, and, crossing the room, she sat down with a murmur of thanks, then she turned to Commines. Drawing back a step La Mothe, half behind her, rested, his hand on the chair-back, and the stage was set.

"Mademoiselle," began Commines, "Saxe, whom you know, told me a strange story to-day, and it seemed to us it was your right to hear it as soon as possible."

"Us? Who are us, Monsieur d'Argenton?"

"Monsieur La Mothe and myself."

"I agree with Monsieur d'Argenton that it is your right to hear it," said La Mothe, "but in everything else I disagree. For me your one word to-day was enough."

"So that is why Monsieur d'Argenton is in Amboise?"

"The story is this," went on Commines, studiously ignoring the cold contempt in her voice. But she interrupted him.

"Let Saxe tell his own story; why else is he here? It is always safer to get such things first-hand. Now, Saxe?"

Turning her shoulder on Commines she confronted Saxe. She knew she was, somehow, on her defence, but not the offence alleged against her. All day La Mothe's unexpected question had troubled her, and vaguely she had connected it with the attempt upon the Dauphin at the Burnt Mill, though how she, the Dauphin's almost one friend in Amboise, could have knowledge of the attempt she could not understand. With the failure of the attack she had thought the incident closed, but now Jean Saxe had a story to tell, a story in some way linked to Stephen La Mothe's question, a question which flushed the pallor of even her weariness when she remembered how widely it had differed from what her thought had been.

But Jean Saxe was in no haste with his tale. Jean Saxe shuffled his feet, licked his dry lips, and caught at his breath. His throat was drier than Villon's had ever been, and Villon's was the driest throat in Amboise. A modest man, though an innkeeper, Jean Saxe did not know which way to look now that he was, for the moment, the centre of the world. Either the grey eyes, their lids no longer drooping, searched him out, or Commines' stern gaze stared him down, or, worst of all, he met the sardonic light with which Villon beamed his satisfaction at a scene quite to his humour, and so Jean Saxe was dumb, remembering that Louis had many ways of paying his debts, and more went into Amboise than came out again. For the trusted servant of so generous a King Jean Saxe was not happy.

"Come, Saxe, come. Tell me what you told me this afternoon, neither more nor less. There is nothing in it to your discredit."

"Yes, monseigneur, certainly. I have nothing to hide. I have always been the King's most humble, faithful, devoted——"

"Leave that aside. Come to your tale and tell the whole truth."

"Of course, monseigneur. Hugues came to me——"

"When did Hugues go to you?" It was Ursula de Vesc who spoke. From his place behind her La Mothe could see the upward defiant tilt of the head as she asked the question.

"Let him tell his story his own way," said Commines, "or you will confuse him."

"As you will, but Hugues is dead and cannot defend himself," and the defiance passed as, with a sigh, the girl sank wearily into her chair, felt La Mothe's hand where it rested upon the back, and leaned hastily forward, then settled slowly into her place again. As for Stephen La Mothe, the beating of his heart quickened, but he stood unmoved. The touch comforted them both.

"Hugues came two days ago——"

"That was the second time. When did he come first?"

"Three weeks ago, monseigneur."

"Are you sure?"

"It was a week before your lordship came to Amboise. I remember it perfectly because——"

"Never mind why; that you remember and are sure of the day is enough. I want you to be exact. It was a week before Monsieur La Mothe and I arrived?"

"Yes, monseigneur." Saxe had thrown off his nervousness. He no longer shuffled his feet but stood breast square to the world. Commines' questions had loosened the thread of his story, and he was ready to run it off the reel without a tangle. "He said the King was very sick in Valmy, so sick and full of suffering that every hour of life was an hour of misery. It would be pure happiness, said he, pure charity and a blessing if such a life were ended. He was sure the King himself had no wish to live."

"That," said Ursula de Vesc, her eyes fixed on vacancy, "is so very like what we all know of His Majesty."

"Yes, mademoiselle. Then he went on to say that those who helped the poor suffering King to relief would be his best friends, and it ought to be no surprise if there were such friends."

"Were there names mentioned?"

"No, monseigneur, not then."

"But this afternoon you told me——"

"I thought Saxe was to tell his story his own way?" broke in Ursula de
Vesc, tartly.

"Mademoiselle de Vesc, you cannot know the peril you stand in."

"Peril from what, Monsieur d'Argenton?"

"from the justice of the King."

"If it be only from his justice then I stand in no peril. But I, and all who love the Dauphin, know well how the King's justice deals with Amboise. Saxe, go on with your story your own way. No names were mentioned that day? What then?"

"Hugues said the King's sickness made him peevish and suspicious, so that he doubted even his own friends. No one was safe, neither high nor low, and no one could tell who would follow the same road as Monsieur de Molembrais, whose safe-conduct couldn't save him. 'Even you, Saxe,' he said, 'faithful as you have been and true servant to the King, not even you are safe, and you know a man's first duty is to himself.'"

Francois Villon could not forgo the favourite tag of philosophy whereby he had shaped his own career, "Toute beste garde sa pel! and that was the first time, Saxe?"

"The first time," repeated Saxe. "I think that was all he said then, monseigneur, or the gist of it, for he repeated it over and over again."

"Then come to the second. When was it?"

"Two days ago, monseigneur."

"Tell it your own way; or, stay a moment. Mademoiselle de Vesc," and Commines turned to the girl, his face both grave and troubled, "help us to be your friends, help us to save you from yourself before it is too late. Much can be forgiven to a generous devotion however misplaced. The King, I am sure, will see it in that light. I beg, I pray you, pray you to speak before Saxe speaks. If not for your own sake, then for the Dauphin's, for——" he paused, and, lifting his eyes, glanced at Stephen La Mothe bolt upright within touch of her, "for the happiness of a life help us to help you."