She sat down on a praying-cushion, motioning me to the other, and I began my tale. At first she listened with a little air of languor, as if the whole were of slight consequence and she really did not care at all what M. le Comte had been about these five weeks. But as I got into the affair of the Rue Coupejarrets she forgot her indifference and leaned forward with burning cheeks, hanging on my words with eager questions. And when I told her how Lucas had evaded us in the darkness, she cried:
"Blessed Virgin! M. de Mar has enough to contend with in this Lucas, without Paul de Lorraine, and Brie, and the Duke of Mayenne himself."
I was silent, being of her opinion. Presently she asked reluctantly:
"Does your master think this Lucas a tool of M. de Mayenne's?"
"Yes, mademoiselle. He says secretaries do not plot against dukedoms for their own pleasure."
"Asassination was not wont to be my cousin Mayenne's way," she said with an accent of confidence that rang as false as a counterfeit coin. I saw well enough that mademoiselle did fear, at least, Mayenne's guilt. I thought I might tell her a little more.
"M. le Comte told me that since his father's coming to Paris M. de Mayenne made him offers to join the League, and he refused them. So then M. de Mayenne, seeing himself losing the whole house of St. Quentin, invented this."
"But it failed. Thank God, it failed! And now he will leave Paris. He will—he must!"
"He did mean to seek Navarre's camp to-morrow," I answered; "but—"
"But what?"