“Listen!” the Doctor broke in; “if you wish to confess, send for your father confessor.”
“I am not confessing to you; I am defending myself.”
“Who is accusing you, then? Your own bad conscience.”
“I have no bad conscience, but I am accused unjustly.”
“Who is accusing you? The starling?”
“My wife and children accuse me, and don’t wish to see me.”
“No; if you have sent them to Amboise, they cannot see you, and, as a matter of fact, they do not wish to.”
“To think that I, the son of King Charles VII, must hear this sort of thing from a quack doctor! I have always liked people of low rank; Olivier the barber was my friend.”
“And the executioner Tristan was your godfather.”
“He was provost-marshal, you dog!”