'The same, sir,' he replied, abruptly, and without taking his
eyes from me. 'I am Mornay. What of that?'

'I am M. de Marsac,' I explained. And there I stopped, supposing
that, as he was in the king's confidence, this would make my
errand clear to him.

But I was disappointed. 'Well, sir?' he said, and waited
impatiently.

So cold a reception, following such treatment as I had suffered
outside, would have sufficed to have dashed my spirits utterly
had I not felt the king's letter in my pocket. Being pretty
confident, however, that a single glance at this would alter M.
du Mornay's bearing for the better, I hastened, looking on it as
a kind of talisman, to draw it out and present it to him.

He took it, and looked at it, and opened it, but with so cold and
immovable an aspect as made my heart sink more than all that had
gone before. 'What is amiss?' I cried, unable to keep silence.
''Tis from the king, sir.'

'A king in motley!' he answered, his lip curling.

The sense of his words did not at once strike home to me, and I
murmured, in great disorder, that the king had sent for me.

'The king knows nothing of it,' was his blunt answer, bluntly
given. And he thrust the paper back into my hands. 'It is a