Germain rose darkly graceful. It was something after nine: the heat
of the August day brooded over the crowded city, and dulled the faint
distant ring of arms and armour that yet would make itself heard above
the hush; a hush which was not silence so much as a subdued hum. As
Mademoiselle passed the closed house beside the Cloister of St. Germain,
where only the day before Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots,
had been wounded, she pressed her escort's hand, and involuntarily drew
nearer to him. But he laughed at her.
"It was a private blow," he said, answering her unspoken thought. "It is
like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what is the King's
will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. It will not
happen again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards"--they were
passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,
abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings--"whom the
King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."
"Cosseins?" she repeated. "But I thought Cosseins--"
"Was not wont to love us!" Tignonville answered, with a confident
chuckle. "He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills,
Mademoiselle. He was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all.
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