"Master Servet," she said with decision, "I know you both by name and reputation. Throughout the bloody years that have just elapsed you have remained a partisan, if not a defender of the good cause. Therefore I come directly to you."
"You do me honor, madame," replied the innkeeper, bowing.
She resumed: "I shall therefore abandon all circumlocution or evasion, to which I might resort with a man whose opinions were less well-known to me, or who was suspected by me. I am a royalist. That gives you a right to my confidence. I know no one here, not even the president of the tribunal, for whom I have a letter from his brother-in-law at Avignon; it is therefore perfectly natural that I should address myself to you."
"I am waiting, madame," said René Servet, "for you to do me the honor to tell me what it is that I can do for you."
"Have you heard, sir, that a young man named Lucien de Fargas was brought to the prison at Nantua a few days ago?"
"Alas! yes, madame; it seems that he is to be tried here, or rather at Bourg. He is a member, so I am told, of the secret society called the Companions of Jehu."
"Do you know the purpose of that society, sir?" asked the young woman.
"I believe that they are to seize the government money and to forward it to our friends in the Vendée and Brittany."
"Exactly, sir; and the government treats these men like ordinary thieves!"
"I believe, madame," said René Servet, in a voice full of confidence, "that our judges are sufficiently intelligent to differentiate between them and ordinary malefactors."