“M. le Duc is now in the camp of M. le Comte de Cadillac,” I began. “He sent this ring by me to prove that I am his messenger. He desires me to bring back to him the person of Mademoiselle Claire de Brissac.”
There was a little stir in their ranks.
“What doth it mean?” asked one at last. “What wants he of the girl?”
“I do not know,” I answered, and I could not wholly keep the bitterness from my voice. “He sent this ring that you might do his bidding without question.”
They nodded one to another, each placing his construction on the order. Doubtless they were all familiar with their master’s passion for her, and so could fashion their own conclusion. Some half dozen of them drew to a corner and talked together a moment in low tones. At last they came back to me.
“You shall have the girl, Monsieur,” said one, “but you must leave us the ring for warrant.”
I handed it over readily enough, and watched him as he hastened across the court and plunged into the dark doorway of the building beyond. The minutes dragged like hours. Would she come? What would she think?
A touch on the arm brought me out of my thoughts. I turned to find myself looking into the face of Roquefort’s surgeon—the one who had gazed down upon me on the rack. Again some fancied familiarity in his features struck me, and his voice, when he spoke, made me fairly start, so certain was I that I had heard it somewhere far from Marleon.
“A word with you, M. de Marsan,” he said, and drew me deeper into the shadow of the wall. “M. le Duc is injured, is he not?”
I glanced around to see that none could hear.