In fact the red cloak, as though it had wings, scaled the stairs rather than mounted them.
"Ah! you will not hear me!" cried Coconnas. "I am angry with you! Are you sorry? Well, the devil! I can run no further." It was from the foot of the staircase that Coconnas hurled this final apostrophe to the fugitive whom he gave up following with his feet, but whom he still followed with his eyes through the screw of the stairway, and who had reached Marguerite's chamber. Suddenly a woman came out of this room and took the arm of the man Coconnas was following.
"Oh! oh!" said Coconnas, "that looked very much like Queen Marguerite. He was expected. In that case it is different. I understand why he did not answer me."
Crouching down by the banister he looked through the opening of the stairway. Then after a few words in a low voice he saw the red cloak follow the queen to her apartments.
"Good! good!" said Coconnas, "that is it. I was not mistaken. There are moments when the presence of our best friend is necessary to us, and dear La Mole has one of those moments."
And Coconnas ascending the stairs softly sat down on a velvet bench which ornamented the landing place, and said to himself:
"Very well, instead of joining him I will wait—yes; but," he added, "I think as he is with the Queen of Navarre I may have to wait long—it is cold, by Heaven! Well! well! I can wait just as well in my room. He will have to come there sometime."
Scarcely had he finished speaking, and started to carry out his resolution, when a quick light step sounded above him, accompanied by a snatch of song so familiar that Coconnas at once turned his head in the direction of the step and the song. It was La Mole descending from the upper story, where his room was. When he perceived Coconnas, he began to descend the stairs four steps at a time, and this done he threw himself into his arms.
"Oh, Heavens! is it you?" said Coconnas. "How the devil did you get out?"
"By the Rue Cloche Percée, by Heavens!"