"Shall we start, Vigo? Once at St. Denis, I am hostage for his safety. The king can tell Mayenne that if Mar is tortured he will torture me! Mayenne may not tender me greatly, but he will not relish his cousin's breaking on the wheel."
"Mayenne won't torture M. Étienne," Vigo said, patting her hand in both of his, forgetting she was a great lady, he an equery. "Fear not! you will save him, mademoiselle."
"Let us go!" she cried feverishly. "Let us go!"
Gilles was in the court waiting, stripped of his livery, dressed peaceably as a porter, but with a mallet in his hand that I should not like to receive on my crown. I thought we were ready, but Vigo bade us wait. I stood on the house-steps with mademoiselle, while he took aside Squinting Charlot for a low-voiced, emphatic interview.
"Must we wait?" mademoiselle urged me, quivering like the arrow on the bow-string. "They may discover I am gone. Need we wait?"
"Aye," I answered; "if Vigo bids us. He knows."
We waited then. Vigo disappeared presently. Mademoiselle and I stood patient, with, oh! what impatience in our hearts, wondering how he could so hinder us. Not till he came back did it dawn on me for what we had stayed. He was dressed as an under-groom, not a tag of St. Quentin colours on him.
"I beg a thousand pardons, mademoiselle. I had to give my lieutenant his orders. Now, if you will give the word, we go."
"Do you go, M. Vigo?" She breathed deep. It was easy to see she looked upon him as a regiment.
"Of course," Vigo answered, as if there could be no other way.