"And we?" asked Montlouis and Du Couëdic.
"Come, also, you are all gentlemen; I risk no more in confiding my secret to all than to one."
The marquis called Talhouet, who had kept good watch, and now rejoined the group, and followed without asking what had passed.
All five went on but slowly, for Gaston's horse was lame; the chevalier guided them toward the convent, then to the little rivulet, and at ten paces from the iron gate he stopped.
"It is here," said he.
"Here?"
"At the convent?"
"Yes, my friends; there is here, at this moment, a young girl whom I have loved since I saw her a year ago in the procession at the Fete Dieu at Nantes; she observed me also—I followed her, and sent her a letter."
"But how do you see her?" asked the marquis.
"A hundred louis won the gardener over to my interest; he has given me a key to this gate; in the summer I come in a boat to the convent wall; ten feet above the water is a window, where she awaits me. If it were lighter, you could see it from this spot—and, in spite of the darkness, I see it now."