"She does!" he cried, flushing. "Félix, does she? You cannot know."
"But I do know it," I answered, not very lucidly. "You see, she wouldn't have wept so much, just over me."
"Did she weep? Lorance?" he exclaimed.
"They flogged me," I said. "They didn't hurt me much. But she came down in the night with a candle and cried over me."
"And what said she? Now I am sorry they beat you. Who did that? Mayenne? What said she, Félix?"
"And then," I went on, not heeding his questions in sudden remembrance of my crowning news, "Mayenne and Lucas came in. And here is something you do not know, monsieur. Lucas is Paul de Lorraine, Henri de Guise's son."
"Mille tonnerres du ciel! But he is a Huguenot, a Rochelais!"
"Yes, but he is a son of Henri le Balafré. His mother was Rochelaise, I think. He was a spy for Navarre and captured at Ivry. They were going to hang him when Mayenne, worse luck, recognized him for a nephew. Since then he has been spying for them. Because Mayenne promised him Mlle. de Montluc in marriage."
He stared at me with dropped jaw, absolutely too startled to swear.
"He has not got her yet!" I cried. "Mayenne told him he should have her when he had killed St. Quentin. And St. Quentin is alive."