"And now see me through the gates."
The man grinned cunningly; but as one who wished to prove his astuteness, not as one who intended to refuse. "That is number four, my lord," he said, "and the chiefest of all."
"Not so," the Duke answered. "It was on that condition I spared your life, fool, when you came in."
"Then you knew----"
"I knew that his buttons were jewelled."
"My lord," the man said with admiration, "I vow you'd face the devil."
"You will do that whether you will or no," the Duke replied drily, "some day. But that reminds me." He turned from his companion. He looked on the bloodshed about him, and gradually his face showed the first signs of compunction that had escaped him. Something of disgust, almost of distress, appeared in his manner. He glanced from one prostrate form to another as if he scarce knew what to do and presently he crossed himself. "Lift her to the couch there," he said. And when it was done, "My friend," he continued, in a lower tone, "wait without the door one minute. But do not go beyond call."
The old soldier raised his eyebrows, but he, thoroughly won over, obeyed. Once outside, however, he pondered cunningly. Why had he been sent out? And thoughts of his jewelled buttons overcame him. After a moment's hesitation--for Joyeuse had put fear into him--he dropped softly to his knee and set his eye to a crack in the door.
M. de Joyeuse was kneeling between the dead, his palms joined before his breast, his rosary between them. The lights of the feast, that shone ghastly on the grim faces and on the blood-pool about them, shone also on his uplifted face, from which the last trace of the tremendous rages to which he was prone had fled, leaving it pale indeed and worn--for the marks of his illness were still upon it--but calm and sublime. His eyes were upward bent. Those eyes that a few minutes earlier had burned with a hatred almost sub-human now shone with a light soft and ecstatic, such as shines in the eyes of those who see visions and hear voices. His lips moved without sound. The beads dropped one by one through his fingers.
* * * * *