“It was they!” cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; “and now it is too late to have them pursued. The duchess is at Tours, and the duke at Boulogne. It is in London they must be found.”
“What are your Eminence’s orders?”
“Not a word of what has passed. Let the queen remain in perfect security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret. Let her believe that we are in search of some conspiracy or other. Send me the keeper of the seals, Séguier.”
“And that man, what has your Eminence done with him?”
“What man?” asked the cardinal.
“That Bonacieux.”
“I have done with him all that could be done. I have made him a spy upon his wife.”
The Comte de Rochefort bowed like a man who acknowledges the superiority of the master as great, and retired.
Left alone, the cardinal seated himself again and wrote a letter, which he secured with his special seal. Then he rang. The officer entered for the fourth time.
“Tell Vitray to come to me,” said he, “and tell him to get ready for a journey.”