without trying to escape, he would throw me to those howling dogs
outside. I gave my word. We are on the road together. And oh,
Anne! yesterday, only yesterday, at this time I was riding home
with Teligny from the Louvre, where we had been playing at paume
with the king! And the world--the world was very fair."

"I saw you, or rather Croisette did," I muttered as his sorrow--
not for himself, but his friends--forced him to stop. "Yet how,
Louis, do you know that we are going to Cahors?"

"He told me, as we passed through the gates, that he was
appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy to carry out the edict
against the religion. Do you not see, Anne?" my companion added
bitterly, "to kill me at once were too small a revenge for him!
He must torture me--or rather he would if he could--by the pains
of anticipation.

"Besides, my execution will so finely open his bed of justice.
Bah!" and Pavannes raised his head proudly, "I fear him not! I
fear him not a jot!"

For a moment he forgot Kit, the loss of his friends, his own
doom. He snapped his fingers in derision of his foe.

But my heart sank miserably. The Vidame's rage I remembered had
been directed rather against my cousin than her lover; and now by
the light of his threats I read Bezers' purpose more clearly than
Louis could. His aim was to punish the woman who had played with
him. To do so he was bringing her lover from Paris that he might
execute him--AFTER GIVING HER NOTICE! That was it: after giving