not speak. You left Auch with him on the twenty-fourth, M. de Berault.
So much I know. And you reached Paris without him last night. He has not
given you the slip?'

'No, Monseigneur,' I muttered.

'Ha! that is good,' he answered, sinking back again in his chair. 'For
the moment--but I knew that I could depend on you. And now where is he?
What have you done with him? He knows much, and the sooner I know it the
better. Are your people bringing him, M. de Berault?'

'No, Monseigneur,' I stammered, with dry lips. His very good-humour,
his benignity, appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the change, how
fearful his rage, when I should tell him the truth. And yet that I, Gil
de Berault, should tremble before any man! With that thought I spurred
myself, as it were, to the task. 'No, your Eminence,' I said, with
the energy of despair. 'I have not brought him, because I have set him
free.'

'Because you have--WHAT?' he exclaimed. He leaned forward as he spoke,
his hands on the arm of the chair; and his eyes growing each instant
smaller, seemed to read my soul.

'Because I have let him go,' I repeated.

'And why?' he said, in a voice like the rasping of a file.

'Because I took him unfairly,' I answered.

'Because, Monseigneur, I am a gentleman, and this task should have been
given to one who was not. I took him, if you must know,' I continued
impatiently--the fence once crossed I was growing bolder--'by dogging a
woman's steps and winning her confidence and betraying it. And whatever
I have done ill in my life--of which you were good enough to throw
something in my teeth when I was last here--I have never done that, and
I will not!'

'And so you set him free?'

'Yes.'

'After you had brought him to Auch?'

'Yes.'

'And, in point of fact, saved him from falling into the hands of the
Commandant at Auch?'

'Yes,' I answered desperately to all.

'Then, what of the trust I placed in you, sirrah?' he rejoined, in a
terrible voice; and stooping still farther forward he probed me with his
eyes. 'You who prate of trust and confidence, who received your life
on parole, and but for your promise to me would have been carrion this
month past, answer me that? What of the trust I placed in you?'

'The answer is simple,' I said, shrugging my shoulders with a touch of
my old self. 'I am here to pay the penalty.'

'And do you think that I do not know why?' he retorted, striking one
hand on the arm of his chair with a f