'Do not go! There are enough sheep for the shearer!'"

He was turning away with this oracular saying when Croisette
touched his sleeve. "Pray can you tell us if it be true," the
lad said eagerly, "that the Admiral de Coligny was wounded
yesterday?"

"It is true," the other answered, turning his grave eyes on his
questioner, while for a moment his stern look failed him, "It is
true, my boy," he added with an air of strange solemnity. "Whom
the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. And, God forgive me for saying
it, whom He would destroy, He first maketh mad."

He had gazed with peculiar favour at Croisette's girlish face, I
thought: Marie and I were dark and ugly by the side of the boy.
But he turned from him now with a queer, excited gesture,
thumping his gold-headed cane on the floor. He called his
servants in a loud, rasping voice, and left the room in seeming
anger, driving them before him, the one carrying his dag, and the
other, two candles.

When I came down early next morning, the first person I met was
Blaise Bure. He looked rather fiercer and more shabby by
daylight than candlelight. But he saluted me respectfully; and
this, since it was clear that he did not respect many people,
inclined me to regard him with favour. It is always so, the more
savage the dog, the more highly we prize its attentions. I asked
him who the Huguenot noble was who had supped with us. For a
Huguenot we knew he must be.