De Proballe laughed. “You have a mercy of your own, Duke. I had not thought of that. Stay, what if he were to use this interval of your mercy to prevail on Gabrielle to fly with him? He is daredevil enough.”
“She would never stoop to that, surely!”
“Women are women, and when they are in—when a man influences them, I mean, the best will do strange things.”
“Return to Malincourt and watch, de Proballe. Your niece is to come to the Castle two hours after noon. Make this flight impossible after then; and after that I will see to it that no chance offers for her to leave even the Castle itself. If the mad attempt be made, have the scoundrel seized and brought to me.”
De Proballe was by no means sorry to get away from the Governor in his present mood, and returned to Malincourt to keep the watch; while the Governor hurried on to the Castle to take further steps designed to prevent this suggested flight; and some of them were to have important results in another direction.
He despatched a body of soldiers to watch round Malincourt, and at the same time sent urgent commands to the officers of the different gates of the city that no one was to be allowed to pass out without leave signed by him. Thus it came about that the courier whom Pascal was sending to Cambrai was stopped, and valuable time lost.
The Governor, having completed these arrangements, was closeted for an hour with his wife, and as soon as he heard, to his intense relief, that Gabrielle had arrived at the Castle and was with the Duchess, he sent for Dubois to sound him in regard to that part of the plan which called for the aid of the Church.
He was as hot now upon the scheme of divorcing his wife in order to be free to marry again, as he had been formerly upon the other intention.
The ruse by which Gerard had succeeded in getting a hundred of his own soldiers enrolled among the Castle troops, by pretending that they came as a gift from the Cardinal Archbishop, was thus having singular results. The Governor read it as a proof that he stood so well with the Cardinal that he could hope to receive his Eminence’s support in the matter of the divorce; and as he concluded Dubois had been chosen as the Cardinal’s delegate because of the latter’s confidence in him, here was the very man at hand to sound on the matter.
Dubois was a clever soldier and a brave fighter, and had been selected by Gerard for his present task because his influence with the men was most likely to keep them in bounds while in the Castle. He made a very brusque unmonklike monk, however; and he now found himself in a very awkward position. Moreover, he knew nothing of Gerard’s experiences within the last few hours.