'Go, Anselm!' she said, 'and rouse Nicolle and two of my women. Tell them some gentlemen are hurt and that I order them to come hither at once and to bring all that is necessary for the dressing of wounds. And—stay!' she added in a tone of peremptory command. 'Not a word to Monseigneur or to his men—you understand?'
The man nodded in quick comprehension, fixed the torch into the wall-bracket and went. As soon as he had gone Jacqueline turned back to de Landas, pillowed his aching head upon her bosom and held his poor, trembling hand in her strong, warm grasp. Then only did she turn to look on Gilles.
He appeared unhurt, or nearly so. True, his doublet was stained—he might have received a scratch—and he bore about his person that unmistakable air of a fighting man who has been in the thick of a fight; but amongst these other fallen and fainting men he alone was standing—and standing firmly, on his feet. And he had a group of men around him, all of whom were quite obviously unhurt. They looked like his henchmen, for they crowded close behind him, looking up to him as to their master.
So, whatever had happened—and Jacqueline gave an involuntary shudder at the thoughts and conjectures which were crowding into her brain—whatever else had happened, the stranger had had plenty of minions and varlets with him to defend him, even if he had been set upon by de Landas and his friends.
It were easy to blame Jacqueline for the utterly false interpretation which she had put on what she saw; but de Landas was the friend, the playmate, and—yes!—the lover; whilst Gilles was only a stranger and an adventurer at best. Strangers were both feared and hated these days in this unfortunate, stricken country, that was tyrannized over and cowed by conquerors of alien blood; and though Jacqueline was shrewd enough to suspect de Landas and his companions of the treachery which they had indeed committed, yet in her mind she half-excused him on the plea that the Prince de Froidmont had been unchivalrous and timid enough to have his person guarded by a gang of paid varlets. Thus it was that the look which she threw on Gilles was both contemptuous and unpitying.
'I pray you, Messire,' she said coldly, 'to leave my guardian's house, ere I call to him to demand of you an explanation which I imagine you are not prepared to give.'
Her words, her look, were so different to what Gilles had expected that, for the moment, he remained absolutely speechless. He certainly had not his wits entirely about him, or he would not, after that one moment of silence, have burst into a harsh and prolonged laugh.
'Messire!' reiterated Jacqueline, more peremptorily, 'I have desired you to go, and to take your varlets along with you, ere they swoon with the excess of their terror.'
'Your varlets!' Gilles laughed more loudly than before—indeed, he felt that he could no longer stop himself from laughing now until he dropped down dead on the floor. Jacqueline was leaning over de Landas and saying something to him which he—Gilles—could not very well hear, but her whole attitude, the look wherewith she regarded the wounded man, sent such a pang of insensate jealousy through Gilles' heart that he could have groaned aloud with the misery of it.
'I entreat you, my beloved,' de Landas murmured more audibly after awhile, 'to go back to your apartments. This is no place for you, and my friends and I will struggle homewards anon.'