"Tiens!" exclaimed the watchman, peering down at him through the gray snow and rime with which was now mixed the blackness of the oncoming night. "You ride in the king's name and would see the marquis. C'est autre chose! Yet I must be careful. Wait, I will descend. Draw up to the grille of the gate."
The horseman did as the watchman bid him, looking down once at the child in his arms, whose face had become uncovered for a moment, and smiling again into its eyes, while he muttered, "Sweet, ere long you shall have a softer couch"; then, as the grille opened and the watchman's ruddy face—all blotched with the consumption of frequent pigeolets of Macon and other wines—appeared at the grating, he bent down toward him as though to submit his own face to observation.
"Your name and following?" grunted the man.
"Georges St. Georges. Lieutenant in the Chevaux-Légers of the Nivernois. In garrison at the Fort de Joux, between Verrières and Pontarlier. Recalled to Paris by order of the king. Ordered to visit the Marquis Phélypeaux. Are you answered, friend?"
"What do you carry in your arms? It seems precious by the way you clasp it to you."
"It is precious. It is a child—my child."
"Tiens! A strange burden for a soldier en route from the frontier to Paris. Where is the mother?"
"In her grave! Now open the gate."
For answer the bolts and bars were heard creaking, and presently one half of the great door swung back to admit the rider. And he, dismounting, led his horse through it by one hand, while with the other he clasped his child to his breast beneath the cloak.
Standing in the warder's lodge was a woman—doubtless his wife—who had heard the conversation; for as St. Georges entered she came forward and exclaimed gently: