"That was two years ago, Sire."
"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he went on, much moved. Then falling into a tone of extreme sadness, he continued, "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding all your fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? Yet he has been careless and distraught of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an appointment, of which he wished to have the sale."
I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry, too, remained silent. At length he rose with an air of resolution.
"We will clear this matter up within the hour!" he said firmly. "I will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grand-master, order half-a-dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do."
I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I saw, therefore, that his mind was made up to go, and that as his spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this little expedition as a relief from the ennui which at times troubled him, I reluctantly withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King dismissed his suite with a few kind words, and in a very short space we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house.
He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and observations of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate uses.
Although we found lights shining behind several of the barred windows, the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King hitched his sword forward, while I begged him to permit the Swiss who accompanied us to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, and accordingly they were left at the entrance to the court with orders to follow at a given signal.
On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too soon of the business which brought us thither.
Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us admittance.
We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or what was happening in the house.