"What can she be going to say to him?" thought Henry, no less surprised than the duke himself.
Marguerite, as if she had guessed her husband's thought, turned toward him.
"Sire," said she, with a charming smile, "you may go back to his majesty if it seem good to you, for the secret which I am going to reveal to my brother is already known to you, for the reason that the request which I made you yesterday in regard to this secret was as good as refused by your majesty. I should not wish, therefore," continued Marguerite, "to weary your majesty a second time by expressing in your presence a wish which seemed to be disagreeable."
"What do you mean?" asked François, looking at both of them with astonishment.
"Aha!" exclaimed Henry, flushing, with indignation, "I know what you mean, madame. In truth, I regret that I am not free. But if I cannot offer Monsieur de la Mole such hospitality as would be equivalent to an assurance, I cannot do less than to recommend to my brother D'Alençon the person in whom you feel such a lively interest. Perhaps," he added, in order to give still more emphasis to the words italicized, "perhaps my brother will discover some way whereby you will be permitted to keep Monsieur de la Mole here near you—that would be better than anything else, would it not, madame?"
"Come, come!" said Marguerite to herself, "the two together will do what neither of them would do individually."
And she opened the closet door and invited the wounded young man to come forth, saying to Henry as she did so:
"Your majesty must now explain to my brother why we are interested in Monsieur de la Mole."
Henry, caught in the snare, briefly related to M. d'Alençon, half a Protestant for the sake of opposition, as he himself was partly a Catholic from prudence, the arrival of Monsieur de la Mole at Paris, and how the young man had been severely wounded while bringing to him a letter from M. d'Auriac.
When the duke turned round, La Mole had come out from the closet and was standing before him.