lightly, "You've got dickey-bird home again."

He answered nothing and turned towards the door, leaving the torch
stuck in the wall. But he suddenly stopped short, and suddenly
thrust out to me a tiny piece of paper.

"A hand touched mine as I went through the Chateau," said he, "and
when out I came, look you, this here! I can't see to read. What does
it say?" he added, with a shrewd attempt at innocence.

I opened the little paper, held it towards the torch, and read:

"Because of the storm there is no sleeping. Is there not the
watcher aloft? Shall the sparrow fall unheeded? The wicked
shall be confounded."

It was Alixe's writing. She had hazarded this in the hands of my
jailer as her only hope, and, knowing that he might not serve her,
had put her message in vague sentences which I readily interpreted.
I read the words aloud to him, and he laughed, and remarked, "'Tis
a foolish thing that--The Scarlet Woman, mast like."

"Most like," I answered quietly; "yet what should she be doing
there at the Chateau?"

"The mad go everywhere," he answered, "even to the intendance!"

With that he left me, going, as he said, "to fetch crumbs and
wine." Exhausted with the day's business, I threw myself upon
my couch, drew my cloak over me, composed myself, and in a few