"Madame!--Louis!" I called softly, feeling about in the darkness.
A weak voice answered,--a voice like that of one just wakened from profound sleep:
"Henri, is it you?--Mon dieu, I am so glad!--I feared some evil had befallen you."
"Living, yes: I have been asleep. Once I awoke, and wondered why you bad not returned. I prayed for you, and then I must have slept again. But what was it awakened me?--was there not a loud noise before I heard your voice?--Who are those men at the door with torches?"
I introduced my father, who, regarding her in the torchlight, and showing as tender a solicitude as a woman's, soon came to the conclusion that her state was no worse than one of extreme weakness for want of food and fresh air. He carried her out, laid her tenderly on a cloak, and administered such food and wine as were good for her. She submitted with the docility and trust of a child.
Leaving her for awhile, my father and I consulted with the leader of the guardsmen, and it was decided that the Countess, my father, and I should pass the night at the tower, the weather being warm and clear. The guardsmen would return with their prisoners to the scene of their recent battle, where much was to be put to rights. On the morrow they would rejoin us, and we should all proceed to Bonneval, where my father's deposition could be added to the report which the leader of the arresting party would have to deliver in Paris in lieu of the Count and Captain themselves.
I could not let the leader go, even for the night, without expressing the gratitude under which I must ever feel to him, for, though he was still ignorant of the identity of the Countess, there was no concealing from him that the supposed youth was a person very near my heart.
"Pouf!" said he, in his manly way; "'tis all chance. I have done nothing for you, but if I had done much I should have been repaid already in the acquaintance of Monsieur de la Tournoire."
"A truce to flattery," said my father. "It is I who am the gainer by the acquaintance of Monsieur Brignan de Brignan."
"That is this gentleman's name," said my father, wondering at my surprise. "Have we been so busy that I have not properly made you known to him before?"
I gazed at the gentleman's moustaches: they were indeed rather longer than the ordinary. He, too, looked his astonishment at the effect of his name upon me.