About him things were to be seen that would have seemed stranger to him
had he been less strange to the city. From the quarter of the markets
north of him, a quarter which fenced in the cemetery on two sides, the
same dull murmur proceeded, which Mademoiselle de Vrillac had remarked an
hour earlier. The sky above the cemetery glowed with reflected light,
the cause of which was not far to seek, for every window of the tall
houses that overlooked it, and the huddle of booths about it, contributed
a share of the illumination. At an hour late even for Paris, an hour
when honest men should have been sunk in slumber, this strange brilliance
did for a moment perplex him; but the past week had been so full of
fetes, of masques and frolics, often devised on the moment and dependent
on the King's whim, that he set this also down to such a cause, and
wondered no more.
The lights in the houses did not serve the purpose he had in his mind,
but beside the closed gate of the cemetery, and between two stalls, was a
votive lamp burning before an image of the Mother and Child. He crossed
to this, and assuring himself by a glance to right and left that he stood
in no danger from prowlers, he drew a note from his breast. It had been
slipped into his hand in the gallery before he saw Mademoiselle to her
lodging; it had been in his possession barely an hour. But brief as its
contents were, and easily committed to memory, he had perused it thrice
already.
"At the house next the Golden Maid, Rue Cinq Diamants, an hour before
midnight, you may find the door open should you desire to talk farther
with C. St. L."
As he read it for the fourth time the light of the lamp fell athwart his
face; and even as his fine clothes had never seemed to fit him worse than
when he faintly denied the imputations of gallantry launched at him by
Nancay, so his features had never looked less handsome than they did now.
The glow of vanity which warmed his cheek as he read the message, the
smile of conceit which wreathed his lips, bespoke a nature not of the
most noble; or the lamp did him less than justice. Presently he kissed
the note, and hid it. He waited until the clock of St. Jacques struck
the hour before midnight; and then moving forward, he turned to the right
by way of the narrow neck leading to the Rue Lombard. He walked in the
kennel here, his sword in his hand and his eyes looking to right and
left; for the place was notorious for robberies. But though he saw more
than one figure lurking in a doorway or under the arch that led to a
passage, it vanished on his nearer approach. In less than a minute he
reached the southern end of the street that bore the odd title of the
Five Diamonds.