The room contained some score of men, but I, peering about by the uncertain candle-light, could find no one who in any wise resembled Lucas. A young gamester seated near the door, whom my sudden entrance had jostled, rose, demanding in the name of his outraged dignity to cross swords with me. On any other day I had deemed it impossible to say him nay, but now with a real vengeance, a quarrel à outrance on my hands, he seemed of no consequence at all. I brushed him aside as I demanded M. de Mayenne's man. They said he was gone. I ran out into the dark court and the darker street.
A tapster, lounging in the courtyard, had seen my man pass out, and he opined with much reason that I should not catch him. Yet I ran a hundred yards up street and a hundred yards down street, shouting on the name of Lucas, calling him coward and skulker, bidding him come forth and fight me. The whole neighbourhood became aware than I wanted one Lucas to fight: lights twinkled in windows; men, women, and children poured out of doors. But Lucas, if it were he, had for the second time vanished soft-footed into the night.
I returned with drooping tail to M. Étienne. He was alone, sitting up in bed awaiting me, his cheeks scarlet, his eyes blazing.
"He is gone," I panted. "I looked everywhere, but he was gone. Oh, if I caught Lucas—"
"You little fool!" he exclaimed. "This was not Lucas. Had you waited long enough to hear your name called, I had told you. This is no errand of Lucas but a very different matter."
He sat a moment, thinking, still with that glitter of excitement in his eyes. The next instant he threw off the bedclothes and started to rise.
"Get my clothes, Félix. I must go to the Hôtel de Lorraine."
But I flung myself upon him, pushing him back into bed and dragging the cover over him by main force.
"You can go nowhere, M. Étienne; it is madness. The surgeon said you must lie here for three days. You will get a fever in your wounds; you shall not go."
"Get off me, 'od rot you; you're smothering me," he gasped. Cautiously I relaxed my grip, still holding him down. He appealed: "Félix, I must go. So long as there is a spark of life left in me, I have no choice but to go."