does not expec' monsieur to fight anybody. Would I fight
you, you think? That was why I had my servants, that evening we play.
I would gladly fight almos' any one in the won'; but I did not wish to
soil my hand with a--"

"Stuff his lying mouth with his orders!" shouted the Duke.

But Molyneux still held the gentlemen back. "One moment," he cried.

"M. de Winterset," said Beaucaire, "of what are you afraid? You
calculate well. Beaucaire might have been belief--an impostor that you
yourself expose'? Never! But I was not goin' reveal that secret. You
have not absolve me of my promise."

"Tell what you like," answered the Duke. "Tell all the wild lies
you have time for. You have five minutes to make up your mind to go
quietly."

"Now you absolve me, then? Ha, ha! Oh, yes! Mademoiselle," he bowed to
Lady Mary, "I have the honor to reques' you leave the room. You shall
miss no details if these frien's of yours kill me, on the honor of a
French gentleman."

"A French what?" laughed Bantison.

"Do you dare keep up the pretense?" cried Lord Town brake. "Know, you
villain barber, that your master, the Marquis de Mirepoix, is in the
next room."

Molyneux heaved a great sigh of relief. "Shall I--" He turned to M.
Beaucaire.

The young man laughed, and said: "Tell him come here at once.

"Impudent to the last!" cried Bantison, as Molyneux hurried from the
room.

"Now you goin' to see M. Beaucaire's master," said Beaucaire to Lady
Mary. "'Tis true what I say, the other night. I cross from Prance in his
suite; my passport say as his barber. Then to pass the ennui of exile, I
come to Bath and play for what one will. It kill the time. But when the
people hear I have been a servant they come only secretly; and there
is one of them--he has absolve' me of a promise not to speak--of him I
learn something he cannot wish to be tol'. I make some trouble to learn
this thing. Why I should do this? Well--that is my own rizzon. So I make
this man help me in a masque, the unmasking it was, for, as there is no
one to know me, I throw off my black wig and become myself--and so I
am 'Chateaurien,' Castle Nowhere. Then this man I use', this Winterset,
he--"

"I have great need to deny these accusations?" said the Duke.

"Nay," said Lady Mary wearily.

"Shall I tell you why I mus' be 'Victor' and 'Beaucaire' and
'Chateaurien,' and not myself?"

"To escape from the bailiffs for debts for razors and soap," gibed Lord
Townbrake.

"