The man roughly inclined his head, and continued his promenade.
‘Does your condition of life please you?’ asked Marie.
‘Mass!’ replied the archer, as he stopped and leant upon his pike. ‘There might be better and there might be worse. I like it well enough: there is no choice if I did not.’
‘You can leave it, if you choose,’ said the Marchioness. ‘Listen. I have gold enough at Offemont to buy land in Italy that would support you and yours for life. Is there no one you would care to share it with?’
The man did not answer. He looked at Marie, and vainly endeavoured to fathom her meaning.
‘You are my only sentinel,’ she went on. ‘What is to prevent our flying together. Once at my château, I will load you with wealth, and you can pass the frontier before our flight has been discovered. I can also put myself beyond the reach of——’
‘No more, madame!’ replied the archer sternly. ‘You have mistaken your man. Has not one lesson been enough?’
The conversation was broken by the entrance of the servant of the hotel—a powerful coarse Flemish woman, with a repulsive manner and countenance, under whose charge Marie was to be placed for the night, a change of guard being posted outside her chamber. She shuddered at this ill-favoured creature, as she followed her to the sleeping apartment, wherein six hours of repose were to be allowed to her before they again started on their journey.
On arriving at Rocroy the next day she was taken before M. de Palluan, as they had previously arranged, and subjected to a severe examination. But unexpectedly as the interview was brought about, the magistrate could elicit nothing from her; even in the face of a confession in her own hand-writing, which a courier had brought after her from Liége, having found it amongst some more of her effects in her chamber at the convent. She met every question with a firm denial or an evasive answer, given with a readiness and self-possession that astonished her interrogators, who, finding that nothing had been gained by this course, which they imagined would have decided any question of her innocence, however slight, that existed, broke up their court, and made arrangements for proceeding with her at once to the Conciergerie—the chief prison in Paris.[21]