Gilles de Retz rose as soon as the curtain had fallen, and shook himself with a yawn, like one who has got through a troublesome necessary duty.

Then he walked to the window and looked out.

The woman had come back and was kneeling before the Hotel de Pornic.
[Illustration: A BRIGHT LIGHT AS OF A FURNACE BURNT UP BEFORE HIM, AND THE HEAT WAS OVERPOWERING AS IT RUSHED LIKE A RUDDY TIDE-RACE AGAINST HIS FACE.] At sight of him she cried with sudden shrillness, "My lord, my great lord, give me back my child--my little Pierre.

He is my heart's heart.
My lord, he never did you any harm in all his innocent life!" The Marshal de Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against the vulgarity of prejudice.

He did not notice four men in the garb of pilgrims who stood in the dark of a doorway opposite.
"This is both unnecessary and excessively discomposing," he muttered; "I fear Poitou has not been judicious enough in his selections." He turned towards the private door, and as he did so Astarte the she-wolf rose and silently followed him with her head drooped forward.
He went along a dark passage and pushed open a little iron door.