"Recognized you! Who is this young woman?"
"Fatality!--But, still, perhaps you alarm yourself needlessly; this girl will hold her peace."
"She will speak; for she loved Giovanni, and she divined the whole truth.--She will speak, for she is determined to avenge her lover!"
"Well! no one will listen to her! no one will believe her! Do you suppose that, on the strength of a girl's word, they will dare to accuse, aye, even to suspect, the Comte de Marvejols?--What proofs could she adduce? Your costume?"
"When I arrived here I had only the cloak left; my servants may have seen that; I made Bathilde burn it."
"I never carried any but Giovanni's short sword. It is here, hidden; see, here it is. If they should make a search--if they should find this weapon!"
"Why should they make a search in this house, where you have not been living for several weeks?"
"Because last night, if those soldiers followed my tracks, guided by the blood I lost, they must have seen where I stopped."
"But they had lost your track, when you were overtaken by this girl."
"I say again, Jarnonville, it is not my life that I wish to save; I must die--I am a miserable wretch--I blush for myself! But let my infamy be kept secret--for my father's sake, for my child's!--Oh! how I suffer!"
Léodgard's head fell back, and a livid pallor overspread his face. The chevalier was on the point of going to call Bathilde, when he heard footsteps and voices in the courtyard. The wounded man raised his head and whispered:
"Do you hear, Jarnonville? they are coming; those are the soldiers; they are coming to arrest the Comte de Marvejols as a highwayman. I am lost!"
"Be calm. Yes, there are footsteps approaching."
"And Giovanni's weapon that I have here?"
"Give it to me; I will attach it to my belt in place of my sword, and no one will even notice it."
In an instant Jarnonville removed his sword and placed it in a corner of the room, and replaced it with the weapon that once belonged to Giovanni. He had hardly made this change, when a servant entered the room, saying:
"Monsieur le comte, there is an officer here, accompanied by several men at arms, whom he has stationed in the courtyard. He desires to have the honor of speaking with you. He is sent, he says, by Monseigneur le Cardinal de Richelieu."