* * * * * * *
The night was falling as he rode back to Paris and entered the city by the western gate, making his way to the Rue Champfleury.
Yet neither the challenge of the guet at the barrier nor the noise inside it when once he was within the city, nor the crowd waiting outside a theatre to witness a revival of L'Écolier de Salamanque, which was the production of the poor decayed creature who had been the first husband of the inscrutable woman he had visited that day, had power to rouse him from his thoughts, nor to drive from out his memory her last words:
"Even if all this were true you will never find him. Even though he lives you will never succeed."
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE HOUSE BY THE BRIDGE.
"Come," said Martin to the trembling pastor, "come. We may do something, avert some awful calamity. You are of their faith. They will listen to you," and he arranged his porte épée and motioned to the old man to follow him.
"Not you! Not you!" the other whispered, shuddering. "Not you! You know not what will befall you if you take part in this."
"Yes, I. I must go too. I am a Protestant as much as they. I tell you, Pastor Buscarlet, I will wear the mask no longer. Come. Hark! There is firing. Come. We can do nothing here. Help neither Huguenot nor Papist."
"On my knees I beseech you to stop," the old man said, flinging himself upon them before Martin, "on my knees. You know not what you do. Think, think! If these men have risen it is at the worst but Frenchmen against Frenchmen. But with you--you are English. And we are at war again. Oh! I sicken with dread that it should be known."