When the door next opened, Marguerite stood before it with a candle in her hand. I therefore knew that it was night. In her other hand, she held four letters, three of them already sealed, the fourth open.
"I have made all arrangements," she said, quickly. "This letter is to the
Abbot Foulon. Read it."
She handed it to me, and held the candle for me while I read:
This gentleman bears private letters to Monsieur. As he was about to depart with them, I learned that the King had been informed of his intended mission, and had given orders for his arrest at the gate. I call upon you to aid him to leave Paris, as you aided my brother Anjou. His arrest would result in a disclosure of how that matter was conducted.
MARGUERITE.
I smiled, when I had finished reading the letter.
"That letter will frighten Brother Foulon into immediate action," said Marguerite, "and he will be compelled to destroy it, as it incriminates him. Take these others. You will first go to Angers, and deliver this to the Duke of Anjou, this to M. de Bussy. Then proceed to Gascony with this, for the King of Navarre."
"And I am to start?"
"To-night. I shall let you down into the moat, as Monsieur was let down. You cannot cross the bridges of the Seine, lest you be stopped by guards at the entrances; therefore I have employed, in this matter, the same boy who served me the other night. Go immediately from the moat to that part of the quay which lies east of the Hôtel de Bourbon. You will find him waiting there in a boat. He will take you across the river to the Quay of the Augustines, and from there you will go alone to the Abbey. When Foulon knows that you come in my name, he will at once admit you. I am sorry that there is not time to have a horse waiting for you outside the fortifications."
"Alas, I must leave my own horse in Paris! I must go forth as a deserter from the Guards!"