do as he said; pardon him, and he
will tell us all. Is it not so, Gaston? You will not have a secret from
your brothers, who beg you, in the names of their wives and children, to
tell it them."

"Certainly," said the marquis, "I not only pardon but love him; he knows
it well. Let him but prove his innocence, and I will make him every
reparation, but, before that, nothing: he is young, and alone in the
world. He has not, like us, wives and children, whose happiness and
whose fortune he is risking; he stakes only his own life, and he holds
that as cheaply as is usual at twenty years of age; but with his life he
risks ours; and yet, let him say but one word showing a justification,
and I will be the first to open my arms to him."

"Well, marquis," said Gaston, after a few moments' silence, "follow me,
and you shall be satisfied."

"And we?" asked Montlouis and Du Couedic.

"Come, also, you are all gentlemen; I risk no more in confiding my
secret to all than to one."

The marquis called Talhouet, who had kept good watch, and now rejoined
the group, and followed without asking what had passed.

All five went on but slowly, for Gaston's horse was lame; the chevalier
guided them toward the convent, then to the little rivulet, and at ten
paces from the iron gate he stopped.

"It is here," said he.

"Here?"

"At the convent?"

"Yes, my friends; there is here, at this moment, a young girl whom I
have loved since I saw her a year ago in the procession at the Fete Dieu
at Nantes; she observed me also--I followed her, and sent her a letter."

"But how do you see her?" asked the marquis.

"A hundred louis won the gardener over to my interest; he has given me a
key to this gate; in the summer I come in a boat to the convent wall;
ten feet above the water is a window, where she awaits me. If it were
lighter, you could see it from this spot--and, in spite of the darkness,
I see it now."

"Yes, I understand how you manage in summer, but you cannot use the boat
now."

"True; but, instead, there is a coating of ice, on which I shall go this
evening; perhaps it will break and engulf me; so much the better, for
then, I hope, your suspicions would die with me."

"You have taken a load from my breast," said Montlouis.

"Ah! my poor Gaston, how happy you make me; for, remember, Du Couedic
and I answered for you."

"Chevalier," said the marquis, "pardon and embrace us."

"Willingly, marquis; but you have destroyed a porti