A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ry rs - ? i ane, Ex > A . i” ar 4 eq * SHADOWS BEFORE. 23 A strange expression, half curiosity, half offence, passed over the young duke’s face, and then he laid his hand, in its embroidered gauntlet, impulsively upon the other’s arm. “Hector, I am no fool, and there is some plan afoot. I can well see that. Why, as a good Catholic and a peer of France, am I kept without the confidences of our party?” “All in good time, all in good time, my dear Paul. Your mother especially . “Mort de ma vie!” interrupted the young man, an- grily, “I am no longer in leading-strings.”’ “Certainly not. I did not mean to intimate it,” said De Vrissac, soothingly. “Becontent. I promise you that you shall know all no later than to-night. By the way,” with a sudden change of manner, “did you know that yesterday when Admiral Coligny was passing the house of Canon Piles, he was shot at?” “Shot at? No! Was he killed?” “No. He had his arm broken and two fingers taken off. But it is hoped the balls were poisoned.” “ Hoped!” De Vrissac deliberately faced the duke, and threw straight in the young man’s eyes a look full of the deepest significance. “Feared! Feared!’ hecorrectedslowly. “ Did Isay hoped? It was a slip of the tongue.” Was it fancy, or at this moment did De Vrissac hear a muffled ejaculation which certainly did not proceed from his comrade. However, before he could investigate, the téte-a-téte was rudely broken in upon. A party of four gypsies, Closely followed by a laughing, noisy crowd, came hur- riedly up to the van. Gomichboo S (©