I looked at him amazed that he should tell me this. He read my look, and said:
“Yes, you are my confidant in this. I do not fear you. Your enemy is bound in honour, your friend may seek to serve himself.” Again he laughed. “As if I, Tinoir Doltaire--note the agreeable combination of peasant and gentleman in my name--who held his hand from ambition for large things in France, should stake a lifetime on this foolish hazard! When I play, Captain Moray, it is for things large and vital. Else I remain the idler, the courtier--the son of the King.”
“Yet you lend your vast talent, the genius of those unknown possibilities, to this, monsieur--this little business of exchange of prisoners,” I retorted ironically.
“You said you knew nothing of the chaplain,” I broke out.
“Not so. I said he was on no record given me. Officially I know nothing of him.”
“Come,” said I, “you know well how I am concerned for him. You quibble; you lied to our General.”
A wicked light shone in his eyes. “I choose to pass that by, for the moment,” said he. “I am sorry you forget yourself; it were better for you and me to be courteous till our hour of reckoning, Shall we not meet some day?” he said, with a sweet hatred in his tone.
He laughed provokingly. “You are melodramatic,” he rejoined. “I could hold that town with one thousand men against all your army and five times your fleet.”
“You have ever talked and nothing done,” said I. “Will you tell me the truth of the chaplain?”
“Yes, in private the truth you shall hear,” he said. “The man is dead.”
“If you speak true, he was murdered,” I broke out. “You know well why.”
“No, no,” he answered. “He was put in prison, escaped, made for the river, was pursued, fought, and was killed. So much for serving you.”
“Will you answer me one question?” said I. “Is my wife well? Is she safe? She is there set among villainies.”
“Your wife?” he answered, sneering. “If you mean Mademoiselle Duvarney, she is not there.” Then he added solemnly and slowly: “She is in no fear of your batteries now--she is beyond them. When she was there, she was not child enough to think that foolish game with the vanished chaplain was a marriage. Did you think to gull a lady so beyond the minute’s wildness? She is not there,” he added again in a low voice.