"Your majesty may be reassured; the plume belongs to me. I lost it here about half-past five, as I was escaping from the hands of four bandits who tried with all their might to murder me, or at least I think they did."
Marguerite repressed a quick gesture of terror.
"Oh! tell me about it!" said she.
"Nothing is easier, madame. It was, as I have had the honor to tell your majesty, about five o'clock in the morning."
"And you were already out at five o'clock in the morning?" interrupted Marguerite.
"Your majesty will excuse me," said La Mole, "I had not yet returned."
"Ah! Monsieur de la Mole! you returned at five o'clock in the morning!" said Marguerite with a smile which was fatal for every one, and which La Mole was unfortunate enough to find adorable; "you returned so late, you merited this punishment!"
"Therefore I do not complain, madame," said La Mole, bowing respectfully, "and I should have been cut to pieces had I not considered myself a hundred times more fortunate than I deserve to be. But I was returning late, or early, as your majesty pleases, from that fortunate house in which I had spent the night in retreat, when four cut-throats rushed from the Rue de la Mortellerie and pursued me with indescribably long knives. It is grotesque, is it not, madame? but it is true—I had to run away, for I had forgotten my sword."
"Oh! I understand," said Marguerite, with an admirably naïve manner, "and you have come back to find your sword?"
La Mole looked at Marguerite as though a suspicion flashed through his mind.