was about to leave, when my eye alighted on a certain thing and I
stopped.

"What is that?" I said. It was a thin case, book-shaped, of
Genoa velvet, somewhat worn.

"Plaister," Maignan, who was waiting at the door, answered. "His
Majesty's hand is not well yet, and as your excellency knows,
he--"

"Silence, fool!" I cried. and I stood rooted to the spot,
overwhelmed by the conviction that I held the clue to the
mystery, and so shaken by the horror which that conviction
naturally brought with it that I could not move a finger. A
design so fiendish and monstrous as that which I suspected might
rouse the dullest sensibilities, in a case where it threatened
the meanest; but being aimed in this at the King, my master, from
whom I had received so many benefits, and on whose life the well-
being of all depended, it goaded me to the warmest resentment. I
looked round the tennis-court--which, empty, shadowy and silent,
seemed a fit place for such horrors--with rage and repulsion;
apprehending in a moment of sad presage all the accursed strokes
of an enemy whom nothing could propitiate, and who, sooner or
later, must set all my care at nought, and take from France her
greatest benefactor.

But, it will be said, I had no proof, only a conjecture; and this
is true, but of it hereafter. Suffice it that, as soon as I had
swallowed my indignation, I took all the precautions affection
could suggest or duty enjoin, omitting nothing; and then,