De Fresne got up. "I think I can guess what it is, and I shall do it with all my heart, and at once." He went to the black oak press, deeply carved with figures of saints, that stood against the wall, and returned with a long object wrapped in a strip of brocade.
"You want this back again. I have kept it carefully, you see. It is yours, L'Oiseleur." And across his guest's knees he laid his surrendered sword.
But Aymar shook his head and held it out to him again. "Not in that way, my friend! And what has happened that you should now restore it to me? The day I gave it up you said you could not serve under me if I retained it."
De Fresne flushed. "But since that interview——"
"Since that interview—what?" Aymar took him up. "I am further from being cleared than ever. You told me then, most truly, that I stood in a terrible situation. Do I stand in one less terrible now, with the scars of my own men's bullets on me?" And, seeing that de Fresne had nothing to answer he got up, laid the sword on the table, and went on: "Only one hand can give that back to me, and it must first be delivered to that hand. Yes, I am going to press for an enquiry, as you advised me. In a sense, therefore, you were right in thinking that I had come for my sword. I am here to ask you if you will assist me in the endeavour to regain it—but if I ask too much——"
"Too much! I am entirely at your service!"
"You mean that? Thank you. I want you then, if the General will give me a court of enquiry, to accuse me before it."
"What!" cried his lieutenant. "That! Never, never!"
"But it is what you would have had to do last May!"
De Fresne sat down again and ran his hands through his hair. "I would do anything to help you, La Rocheterie. But I cannot do that. You offered your life for mine—yes, I know that the circumstances demanded it, and I should, I hope, have done it as unhesitatingly myself in your place. But you did offer it. . . . No, nothing would bring me to it."