“Mademoiselle must explain herself,” said M. de Lauzun. “If he be spirit—or phantom—there is no more to say, but if he be in the flesh, and a spy—then—” There was a little rattle of his sword.
“Speak, I command,” interposed the Queen; “you must satisfy M. le Comte.”
Thus adjured, Anne said in a low voice of horror: “It was a gentleman of our neighbourhood; he was killed in a duel last summer!”
“Ah! You are certain?”
“I had the misfortune to see the fight,” sighed Anne.
“That accounts for it,” said the Queen kindly. “If mademoiselle’s nerves were shaken by such a remembrance, it is not wonderful that it should recur to her at so strange a watch as we have been keeping.”
“It might account for her seeing this revenant cavalier in any passenger,” said Lauzun, not satisfied yet.
“No one ever was like him,” said Anne. “I could not mistake him.”
“May I ask mademoiselle to describe him?” continued the count.
Feeling all the time as if this first mention were a sort of betrayal, Anne faltered the words: “Small, slight, almost misshapen—with a strange one-sided look—odd, unusual features.”