"Pray, sir, what is it?"

"To serve and guard the lady who goes also."

After a moment of seeming surprise, he broke into a sneering laugh.

"You go to guard her?" he said.

"Her and her honour," I answered steadily. "And I do not desire to resign that task into your hands, my lord."

"What will you do? How will you serve her?" he asked.

A sudden suspicion of him seized me. His manner had changed to a forced urbanity; when he was civil he was treacherous.

"That's my secret, my lord," I answered. "I have preparations to make. I pray you, give me leave." I opened the door and held it for him.

His rage mastered him; he grew red and the veins swelled on his forehead.

"By heaven, you shan't go," he cried, and clapped his hand to his sword.

"Who says that Mr Dale shall not go?"

A man stood in the doorway, plainly attired, wearing boots, and a cloak that half-hid his face. Yet I knew him, and Carford knew him. Carford shrank back, I bowed, and we both bared our heads. M. de Perrencourt advanced into the room, fixing his eyes on Carford.

"My lord," he said, "when I decline a gentleman's services I am not to be forced into accepting them, and when I say a gentleman shall go with me he goes. Have you a quarrel with me on that account?"

Carford found no words in which to answer him, but his eyes told that he would have given the world to draw his sword against M. de Perrencourt, or, indeed, against the pair of us. A gesture of the newcomer's arm motioned him to the door. But he had one sentence more to hear before he was suffered to slink away.

"Kings, my lord," said M. de Perrencourt, "may be compelled to set spies about the persons of others. They do not need them about their own."

Carford turned suddenly white, and his teeth set. I thought that he would fly at the man who rebuked him so scornfully; but such an outbreak meant death; he controlled himself. He pa.s.sed out, and Louis, with a careless laugh, seated himself on my bed. I stood respectfully opposite to him.

"Make your preparations," said he. "In half an hour's time we depart."

I obeyed him, setting about the task of filling my saddle-bags with my few possessions. He watched me in silence for awhile. At last he spoke.

"I have chosen you to go with me," he said, "because although you know a thing, you don't speak of it, and although you see a thing, you can appear blind."

I remembered that Madame thought my blindness deficient, but I received the compliment in silence.

"These great qualities," he pursued, "make a man's fortune. You shall come with me to Paris."

"To Paris, sir?"

"Yes. I'll find work for you there, and those who do my work lack neither reward nor honour. Come, sir, am I not as good a King to serve as another?"

"Your Majesty is the greatest Prince in Christendom," said I. For such indeed all the world held him.

"Yet even the greatest Prince in Christendom fears some things," said he, smiling.

"Surely nothing, sir?"

"Why, yes. A woman's tongue, a woman's tears, a woman's rage, a woman's jealousy; I say, Mr Dale, a woman's jealousy."

It was well that my preparations were done, or they had never been done.

I was staring at him now with my hands dropped to my side.

"I am married," he pursued. "That is little." And he shrugged his shoulders.

"Little enough at Courts, in all conscience," thought I; perhaps my face betrayed something of the thought, for King Louis smiled.

"But I am more than a husband," he pursued. "I am a lover, Mr Dale."

Not knowing what comment to make on this, I made none. I had heard the talk about his infatuation, but it was not for me to mention the lady's name. Nor did the King name her. He rose and approached me, looking full in my face.

"You are neither a husband nor a lover?" he asked.

"Neither, sir."

"You know Mistress Quinton?"

"Yes, sir."

He was close to me now, and he whispered to me as he had whispered to the King in the Council Chamber.

"With my favour and such a lady for his wife, a gentleman might climb high."

I heard the words, and I could not repress a start. At last the puzzle was pieced, and my part plain. I knew now the work I was to do, the price of the reward I was to gain. Had he said it a month before, when I was not yet trained to self-control and concealment, King as he was, I would have drawn my sword on him. For good or evil dissimulation is soon learnt. With a great effort I repressed my agitation and hid my disgust. King Louis smiled at me, deeming what he had suggested no insult.

"Your wedding shall take place at Calais," he said; and I (I wonder now to think of it) bowed and smiled.

"Be ready in a quarter of an hour," said he, and left me with a gracious smile.

I stood there where I was for the best part of the time still left to me. I saw why Carford desired the mission on which I went, why Madame bade me practise the closing of my eyes, how my fortune was to come from the hand of King Louis. An English gentleman and his wife would travel back with the King; the King would give his favour to both; and the lady was Barbara Quinton.

I turned at last, and made my final preparation. It was simple; I loaded my pistol and hid it about me, and I buckled on my sword, seeing that it moved easily in the sheath. By fortune's will, I had to redeem the pledge which I had given to my lord; his daughter's honour now knew no safety but in my arm and wits. Alas, how slender the chance was, and how great the odds!

Then a sudden fear came upon me. I had lived of late in a Court where honour seemed dead, and women, no less than men, gave everything for wealth or place. I had seen nothing of her, no word had come from her to me. She had scorned Monmouth, but might she not be won to smile on M. de Perrencourt? I drove the thought from me, but it came again and again, shaming me and yet fastening on me. She went with M. de Perrencourt; did she go willingly?

With that thought beating in my brain, I stepped forth to my adventure.

CHAPTER XVI

M. DE PERRENCOURT WONDERS

As I walked briskly from my quarters down to the sea, M. de Perrencourt's last whisper, "With my favour and such a lady for his wife, a gentleman might climb high," echoed in my ears so loudly and insistently as to smother all thought of what had pa.s.sed in the Council Chamber, and to make of no moment for me the plots and plans alike of Kings, Catholics, and Ranters. That night I cared little though the King had signed away the liberties of our religion and his realm; I spared no more than a pa.s.sing wonder for the attempt to which conscience run mad had urged Phineas Tate, and in which he in his turn had involved my simpleton of a servant. Let them all plot and plan; the issue lay in G.o.d's hand, above my knowledge and beyond my power. My task was enough, and more than enough, for my weakness; to it I turned, with no fixed design and no lively hope, with a prayer for success only, and a resolve not to be King Louis' catspaw. A month ago I might have marvelled that he offered such a part to any gentleman; the illusions of youth and ignorance were melting fast; now I was left to ask why he had selected one so humble for a place that great men held in those days with open profit and without open shame; aye, and have held since. For although I have lived to call myself a Whig, I do not hold that the devil left England for good and all with the House of Stuart.