But the respite, though its strangeness diverted his thoughts for a while, brought short relief.

The horrors which impended over others surged afresh into his mind, and filled him with a maddening sense of impotence.

To be one hour, only one short half-hour without! To run through the sleeping streets, and scream in the dull ears which a King's flatteries had stopped as with wool! To go up and down and shake into life the guests whose royal lodgings daybreak would turn to a shambles reeking with their blood! They slept, the gentle Teligny, the brave Pardaillan, the gallant Rochefoucauld, Piles the hero of St.Jean, while the cruel city stirred rustling about them, and doom crept whispering to the door.

They slept, they and a thousand others, gentle and simple, young and old; while the half-mad Valois shifted between two opinions, and the Italian woman, accursed daughter of an accursed race, cried, "Hark!" at her window, and looked eastwards for the dawn.
And the women?
The woman he was to marry?
And the others?
In an access of passion he thrust aside those who stood between, he pushed his way, disregarding complaints, disregarding opposition, to the door.

But the pikes lay across it, and he could not utter a syllable to save his life.
He would have flung himself on the doorkeepers, for he was losing control of himself; but as he drew back for the spring, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a voice he loathed hummed in his ear.
"No, fair play, noble sir; fair play!" the cripple Jehan muttered, forcibly drawing him aside.