"So!" he said.

"You have something to tell me, it seems ?" And taking the trembling Louis by the arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge.

In doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank with a keen gaze.

He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence protected him from arrest.

Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to put his head again into the lion's mouth.