As he was in the deepest of his strategic meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort returned.
"Well ?" said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a promptitude which proved the degree of importance he attached to the commission with which he had charged the count.
"Well," said the latter, "a young woman of about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, and a man of from thirty-five to forty, have indeed lodged at the two houses pointed out by your Eminence; but the woman left last night, and the man this morning." "It was they!" cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; "and now it is too late to have them pursued.

The duchess is at Tours, and the duke at Boulogne.

It is in London they must be found." "What are your Eminence's orders ?" "Not a word of what has passed.

Let the queen remain in perfect security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret.

Let her believe that we are in search of some conspiracy or other.