and the strange circumstances and mistakes which had delayed us
hour after hour, through all that strange night, until the time
had gone by when we could do good.

His eyes glistened and his colour rose as I told the story. He
wrung my hand warmly, and looked back to smile at Marie and
Croisette. "It was like you!" he ejaculated with emotion. "It
was like her cousins! Brave, brave lads! The Vicomte will live
to be proud of you! Some day you will all do great things! I
say it!"

"But oh, Louis!" I exclaimed sorrowfully, though my heart was
bounding with pride at his words, "if we had only been in time!
If we had only come to you two hours earlier!"

"You would have spoken to little purpose then, I fear," he
replied, shaking his head. "We were given over as a prey to the
enemy. Warnings? We had warnings in plenty. De Rosny warned
us, and we scoffed at him. The king's eye warned us, and we
trusted him. But--" and Louis' form dilated and his hand rose as
he went on, and I thought of his cousin's prediction--"it will
never be so again in France, Anne! Never! No man will after
this trust another! There will be no honour, no faith, no
quarter, and no peace! And for the Valois who has done this, the
sword will never depart from his house! I believe it! I do
believe it!"

How truly he spoke we know now. For two-and-twenty years after
that twenty-fourth of August, 1572, the sword was scarcely laid
aside in France for a single month. In the streets of Paris, at