I made my way swiftly back along the path that St. Auban and I had together trodden but a little while ago, and past the château until I came to the shrubbery where Michelot--faithful to the orders I had given him--awaited my return. From his concealment he had seen me leave the château with the Marquis, and as I suddenly loomed up before him now, he took me for the man whose clothes I wore, and naturally enough assumed that ill had befallen Gaston de Luynes. Of a certainty I had been pistolled by him had I not spoken in time. I lingered but to give him certain necessary orders; then, whilst he went off to join Abdon and see to their fulfilment, I made my way stealthily, with eyes keeping watch around me, across the terrace, and through the window into the room that St. Auban had left to follow me to his death.
The tapers still burned, and in all respects the chamber was as it had been; the back and breast pieces still lay upon the floor, and on the table the littered documents. The door I ascertained had been locked on the inside, a precaution which St. Auban had no doubt taken so that none might spy upon the work that busied him.
I closed and made fast the window, then I bethought me that, being in ignorance of the whereabouts of St. Auban's bed-chamber, I must perforce spend the night as best I could within that very room.
And so I sat me down and pondered deeply o'er the work that was to come, the part I was about to play, and the details of its playing. In this manner did I while away perchance an hour; through the next one I must have slept, for I awakened with a start to find three tapers spent and the last one spluttering, and in the sky the streaks that heralded the summer dawn.
Again I fell to thinking; again I slept, and woke again to find the night gone and the sunlight on my face. Someone knocked at the door, and that knocking vibrated through my brain and set me wide-awake, indeed. It was as the signal to uplift the curtain and let my play-acting commence.
Hastily I rose and shot a glance at the mirror to see that my wig hung straight and that my mask was rightly adjusted. I started at my own reflection, for methought that from the glass 't was St. Auban who looked at me, as I had seen him look the night before when he had donned those things at my command.