The Marquis de la Boëssière looked at the speaker. "Oh, M. de la Rocheterie himself was the leader in question, was he? Then she was personally known to him? Is that so, Monsieur de la Rocheterie? I do not think we had gathered that."
Laurent would not even look at his friend's back here; he looked (against his will) at the deeply interested audience.
"Yes," said Aymar briefly.
"How well? You must pardon the question."
A tiny pause. "She was my cousin."
"Ah, I see," said M. de la Boëssière. He might not have meant his tone to sound significant; it could hardly avoid doing so. Among the audience there was an undoubted and rather pleasurable stir, and on the face which Laurent had already singled out for dislike a grin which made the young man clench his hands.
However, the Court intimated that Aymar should proceed with his narrative. He did so. He recalled the innkeeper to prove that he arrived at three in the morning at Keraven, was greatly distressed at finding the troops gone, and set off at once on a fresh horse. And he had carried his recital as far as the Bois des Fauvettes when an objection occurred from the dark, thin-faced officer who had made the observation about "clouded perceptions." This individual suggested that L'Oiseleur should produce some witness to prove that he really did his best after he left Keraven to arrive in time to prevent a disaster. "Otherwise," he observed, "you might have planned to arrive too late."
"Oh, bosh!" cried Laurent internally, now fixing this objector with a hostile eye.
Aymar replied that he could hardly prove that; the only witness to his haste (failing the dead body of the horse which he had killed by it, and the quarryman whom he had intimidated into selling him another) would again be the innkeeper to whom he had paid the value of the first. "But," he added, "if I had really intended to be too late, should I have rejoined my men at all the same morning?"
"That ought to settle him," thought Laurent. But instead he found that this keen-witted person was landing his friend in a new and unforeseen difficulty, for, having elicited that de Fresne, the next witness, had not appeared in the Bois des Fauvettes till the afternoon of Monday, May 1st, he pointed out that there was no evidence to show that he did rejoin his force the same morning.