"M. de Béthune and his cousins. What further? Did you hear shrieks?"

"There was naught further," I said, shuddering. "I saw them for the space of a lightning-flash, plain as I see you. The next minute the shutters were closed again."

"'Tis a marvel," he answered gravely. "But I know what has disturbed them in their graves, the heretics! It is that they have lost their leader."

I stared at him blankly, and he added:

"Their Henry of Navarre."

"But he is not lost. There has been no battle."

"Lost to them," said Maître Jacques, "when he turns Catholic."

"Oh!" I cried.

"Oh!" he mocked. "You come from the country; you don't know these things."

"But the King of Navarre is too stiff-necked a heretic!"