"Ah, Jean," he said at last, "I may not go about her house howling like a wolf, nor yet do any great thing for her. As you say, our acquaintance has not been long. But if you can love her more than I, or serve her better, or are willing to give your life more lightly for her sake than I--why then, Jean, my friend, you are welcome to her!"
Jean-aux-Choux did not answer, but D'Albret took no heed. He went on:
"'By their deeds ye shall know them. They taught you that at Geneva, I warrant. Well, from what I have seen these past three days, Claire Agnew is far from safe down there. I have watched that black-browed master of yours conferring with certain other gentlemen of singularly evil physiognomy. There has been far too much dodging into coppices and popping heads round stone walls. And then, as often as the maid comes to the door with the little old woman in the stomacher of blue--click--they are all in their holes again, like a warren-full of rabbits when you look over the hedge and clap your hands! I do not like it, Jean-aux-Choux!"
Neither did Jean-aux-Choux--so little, indeed, that he decided to take this light-minded young gentleman, of good family and few ambitions, into his confidence--which, perhaps, was the wisest thing he could have done. From his blouse he drew the parchment he had lifted off the table of the Inquisition in the Street of the Money, and thrust it silently into the other's hand.
This was all Jean-aux-Choux's apology, but, for the Abbé John, it was perfectly sufficient.
It was the night of the grand _coup_ which was to ease Master Raphael Llorient of all his troubles financial, and also to put an acknowledged heretic within the clutches of these two faithful servants of the Holy Office, Dom Ambrose Teruel and his second, Frey Tullio the Neapolitan.
The affair had been carried out with the utmost zeal, and though at first success had seemed more than doubtful, the familiars of the Office had pounced upon their victim walking calmly towards them down a little hollow among the sand-dunes.
At La Masane, it appeared to them that an alarm had been given, and that, as little Andrés the ape expressed it, "the whole byre had broken halter and run for it."