'Surely you know the drift of all this inquiry--you cannot be ignorant that it was to assail her Majesty with a base scandal that you were placed beneath her window, and so discovered in the morning, at the very moment of her finding you there. Are you not aware that no falsehood is too gross nor too barefaced not to meet credence if she be its object? Do not all they who plan the downfall of the monarchy despair of success while her graceful virtues adorn her high station? Is not every effort of the vile faction directed solely against her? Have you not witnessed how, one by one, have been abandoned all the innocent pleasures to which scandal attached a blame. The Trianon deserted--the graceful amusements she loved so well--all given up. Unable to meet slander face to face, she has tried to make it impossible, as if one yet could obliterate the venomous poison of this rancorous hate!'
'And now,' said Gerald, drawing a long breath, 'and now for my part in this infernal web of falsehood.'
'If you refused to state where you had passed the evening--why you wore a disguise, how you came by your wound--you must allow you furnished matter for whatever suspicion they desired to attach to you.'
'They are free to believe of me what they may.' 'Ay, but not to include others in the imputation.'
'I never so much as dreamed of that!' said Gerald, with a weary sigh.
'Well, boy, it is just what has happened; not that there lives one base enough to believe this slander, though ten thousand are ready to repeat it. There, see how the _Gazette de Paris_ treats it, a journal that once held a high place in public favour. Read that.'
Gerald bent over the paper, and read, half aloud, the following paragraph:--
'The young officer of the Garde du Corps examined by the Special Commission as to the extraordinary circumstances under which he was lately discovered in the garden of her Majesty, having refused all explanation either as to his disguise, his recent wound, or any reason for his presence there, has been adjudged guilty under the following heads: First, breach of military duty in absence from the Garde without leave; secondly, infraction of discipline in exchanging his uniform.'
'Well, well!' cried Gerald, 'what is the end of all this?'