But such is life in troubled times. Pleasure and pain come mingled together, and men snatch the former even from the midst of the latter with a trembling joy; knowing that if they wait to go a pleasuring until the sky be clear, they may wait until nightfall.
When Adrian called his guest at cock-crow the latter rose briskly and followed him down to the door. "Well, young sir," he said on the threshold, as he wrapped his cloak round him and took his sheathed sword in his hand, "I am obliged to you. When I can do you a service, I will."
"You can do me one now," replied the clerk bluntly, "It is ill work having to do with strangers in these days. You can tell me who you are, and to which side you belong."
"Which side? I have told you--my own. And for the rest," continued the soldier, "I will give you a hint." He brought his lips near the other's ear, and whispered, "Kiss Marie--for me!"
The clerk looked up aflame with anger, but the other was already gone striding down the street. Yet Adrian received an answer to his question. For as the stranger disappeared in the gloom, he broke out with an audacity that took the listener's breath away into a well-known air,
"Hau! Hau! Papegots!
Faites place aux Huguenots!"
and trilled it as if he had been in the streets of Rochelle.
"Death!" exclaimed the clerk, getting back into the house, and barring the door, "I thought so. He is a Huguenot. But if he takes his neck out of Paris unstretched, he will have the fiend's own luck, and the Béarnais' to boot!"
II.
When the clerk went upstairs, again, he heard voices in the back room. Felix and Marie were in consultation. The girl was a different being this morning. The fire and fury of the night had sunk to a still misery: and even to her it seemed over dangerous to stay in the house and confront the rage of the mob. Mayenne might not after all return yet: and in that case the Sixteen would assuredly wreak their spite on all, however young or helpless, who might have had to do with the removal of the body. "You must seek shelter with some friend," Felix proposed, "before the city is astir. I can go to the University. I shall be safe there."