You had him in your power! You could have killed him, and you did not! Now he will kill me!" Madame Claude muttered something tearfully, something about Pavannes and the saints. I looked over Croisette's shoulder, and read the letter. It began abruptly without any term of address, and ran, "I have a mission in Paris, Mademoiselle, which admits of no delay. Your mission, as well as my own -- to see Pavannes. You have won his heart. It is yours, and I will bring it you, or his right hand in token that he has yielded up his claim to yours. And to this I pledge myself." The thing bore no signature. It was written in some red fluid -- blood, perhaps. On the outside was scrawled a direction to Mademoiselle de Caylus. And the packet was sealed with the Vidame's crest, a wolf's head.