But the Vicomte, who was one of
the most generous and noble hearted men that it has ever been my good
fortune to meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by urging that
I should remain at the chateau until my recovery were completed, and,
for that matter, as long thereafter as should suit my inclinations.

"At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend," he assured me; "for, as I have
told you, we are under no suspicion. Let me urge you to remain until the
King shall have desisted from further persecuting us."

And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he waived the point with
a brusqueness that amounted almost to anger.

"Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured at serving one who
has so stoutly served the Cause and sacrificed so much to it."

At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I winced, and told myself
that my behaviour was unworthy, and that I was practising a detestable
deception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in consideration
of how far I was victim of circumstance. Did I tell him that I was
Bardelys, I was convinced that I should never leave the chateau alive.
Very noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man have I known more averse
to bloodthirstiness, but he had told me much during the days that I had
lain abed, and many lives would be jeopardized did I proclaim what I had
learned from him. Hence I argued that any disclosure of my identity must
perforce drive him to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he
had unwittingly betrayed.

On the day after Rodenard's departure I dined with the family, and met
again Mademoiselle de Lavedan, whom I had not seen since the balcony
adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also present, a lady
of very austere and noble appearance--lean as a pike and with a most
formidable nose--but, as I was soon to discover, with a mind inclining
overmuch to scandal and the high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which
her girlhood had been spent.

From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of Monseigneur
de Richelieu's early passion for Anne of Austria. With much unction did
she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence to dress himself in the
motley of a jester that she might make a mock of him in the eyes of the
courtiers she had concealed behind the arras of her chamber.

This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail and
scant regard for either her daughter's presence or for the blushes that
suffused th