I was like a man waiting and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as any craven.

But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed myself carefully.

I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where I was going.
I put the little man aside gently.
'To the tables,' I said, 'to make a big throw, my friend.' It was a fine morning, sunny, keen, pleasant, when I went out into the street; but I scarcely noticed it.

All my thoughts were where I was going, so that it seemed but a step from my threshold to the Hotel Richelieu; I was no sooner gone from the one than I found myself at the other.

Now, as on a memorable evening when I had crossed the street in a drizzling rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there were two or three guards, in the Cardinal's livery, loitering in front of the great gates.