Arques, and Coutras, and Ivry, blood flowed like water that the
blood of the St. Bartholomew might be forgotten--that blood
which, by the grace of God, Navarre saw fall from the dice box on
the eve of the massacre. The last of the Valois passed to the
vaults of St. Denis: and a greater king, the first of all
Frenchmen, alive or dead, the bravest, gayest, wisest of the
land, succeeded him: yet even he had to fall by the knife, in a
moment most unhappy for his country, before France, horror-
stricken, put away the treachery and evil from her.

Talking with Louis as we rode, it was not unnatural--nay, it was
the natural result of the situation--that I should avoid one
subject. Yet that subject was the uppermost in my thoughts.
What were the Vidame's intentions? What was the meaning of this
strange journey? What was to be Louis' fate? I shrank with good
reason from asking him these questions. There could be so little
room for hope, even after that smile which I had seen Bezers
smile, that I dared not dwell upon them. I should but torture
him and myself.

So it was he who first spoke about it. Not at that time, but
after sunset, when the dusk had fallen upon us, and found us
still plodding southward with tired horses; a link outwardly like
other links in the long chain of riders, toiling onwards. Then
he said suddenly, "Do you know whither we are going, Anne?"

I started, and found myself struggling with a strange confusion
before I could reply. "Home," I suggested at random.

"Home? No. And yet nearly home. To Cahors," he answered with