The traitor's way

I SUPPOSE there is no man who would care to have sunlight in all his life; but I hardly think there is one who could have sunk to the deep as I did, and yet have been coward eno...

THE first thing I did after Marcilly’s departure was to replace the glove in my pocket, then I lifted the curtain and walked into my dressing-room. I had a mad thought that Mari...

I WALKED rapidly toward the Vallée de Misère, looking neither to the right nor to the left of me. What had happened had not been my fault. The quarrel was none of my seeking, an...

IT was Majolais, the black dwarf, who first pointed it out. We, that is, Lanoy, the Comte de Marcilly, who was known as “The Shadow of Condé,” myself, and lastly Majolais, who h...

There was a clattering of spurred heels as Coqueville and Lanoy rushed to the stairway; but, trembling and hot with shame, I remained chained by the horrible thought that had ta...

“I will explain. I owed my life to-day to my likeness to the Prince. When I was at that man’s mercy you saw him throw up his sword and pass me?”

“MON DIEU! Messire!” said the farmer, “but monsieur there is as like to Monseigneur the Prince of Condé as one egg is to another. I remember last year, when I was factor of Beau...

FOR a moment I stood, thinking of Achon’s last words, and then it all came back to me. It was he who had played the mendicant friar in Paris, that night when Lignières had died....

IT was market day, as I have said, and the little square was full to overflow with a chaffering, haggling crowd, that pressed round the shelter of the shops, and squeezed, pushe...

WE had reined up under a huge yoke-elm, whose spreading branches threw a mottled shade on the snow at our feet, and watched Ponthieu in silence until he went quite out of our si...

IN four steps we were on the white, glistening quay, and, mounting our horses, began to edge toward the nearest gate, the Porte Royale, by which we proposed to enter the city. I...

AS the last trembling notes of the vesper bells died away, the gates of Cipierre’s house opened, and Marcilly and myself, accompanied by one of the Swiss, rode out into the squa...

MARCILLY was right when he said that if we once succeeded in enlisting the good wishes of Sancerre and his uncle, they would act for us with full hearts. He knew them better tha...

IT was a small room, the curtains at the windows were drawn, and a fire burned brightly in the grate. On the polished oak of the floor, black with age, were scattered rare easte...

I STARTED at the words; but they brought me to myself, and with a bow I turned and passed into the ante-chamber. Some one was just quitting the room as I entered, for I caught t...

BOWING low, we stepped from the King’s bedside and moved toward the door, Catherine stopping Sancerre to give a last injunction: “You will leave by the private way, through my a...

SO taken aback were we that for a breath we did not realize who it was. We heard the reckless cry riding back to us through the shivering winter moonlight, we heard the excited...

It was de Bresy who spoke as I was mounting my horse. He was leaning over the parapet that crowned the gateway, and looking down at me with a curious, suspicious glance in his e...

IT was true then, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. Out of Marie’s own lips was she convicted twice over, and had I been struck across the face with her riding-whip, the s...

I HURRIED on, utterly careless whither my footsteps led. Richelieu’s speech burned within me, and my very soul shrivelled under the fierce light he had poured upon it. I saw mys...

EVEN as the words fell from my lips, their other meaning flashed upon me in vivid, insistent light, and the mockery I flung at the poor fool, there battering at the door with fr...

WHEN an overwhelming disaster befalls one, when the whole ship of one’s life founders hopelessly, it is perhaps decreed in mercy that the full horror of the thing cannot be real...

I MADE no answer to Lorgnac, but stood for a moment incapable of thought or action; hardly, indeed, realizing that I was free from my shameful bonds. Around me was a sea of face...