least spark will fire a train. His words were few, but they
formed spark enough to raise such a flare in my brain as for a
moment blinded me, and shook me so that I trembled. The shock
over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness
such as I could never have suspected of myself. I remembered
Mirepoix's distress and the priest's eagerness. I re-called the
gruff warning Bezers--even Bezers, and there was something very
odd in Bezers giving a warning!--had given Madame de Pavannes
when he told her that she would be better where she was. I
thought of the wakefulness which I had marked in the streets, the
silent hurrying to and fro, the signs of coming strife, and
contrasted these with the quietude and seeming safety of
Mirepoix's house; and I hastily asked Pavannes at what time he
had been arrested.

"About an hour before midnight," he answered.

"Then you know nothing of what is happening?" I replied quickly.
"Why, even while we are loitering here--but listen!"

And with all speed, stammering indeed in my haste and anxiety, I
told him what I had noticed in the streets, and the hints I had
heard, and I showed him the badges with which Madame had
furnished me.

His manner when he had heard me out frightened me still more. He
drew me on in a kind of fury to a house in the windows of which
some lighted candles had appeared not a minute before.

"The ring!" he cried, "let me see the ring! Whose is it?"