“You know M. de Brencourt?”
“We are under the same orders.”
“Those of this Marquis de Kersaint?”
“Precisely,” said the gardener, and he now gulped down the coffee.
“But,” objected the Duchesse, puzzled, “how is it that you confide in me so readily? With M. de Brencourt”—“it was different,” she was going on to say, but stopped, realising that she was on the verge of an indiscretion.
“Because in the first place,” said the new treasure-seeker, “I went, on the receipt of certain information, to those old MM. de Céligny to whom you so cleverly restored their interesting young relative; and from them—since the boy has returned to his grandfather—I learnt all that Roland had told them of your devotion.”
“Roland has gone, then?” said she, relieved. “He was well again?”
“Very nearly. The wound was not serious.”
“And the second gentleman—he who was arrested, M. de Brencourt?”
“He is still imprisoned in the Temple, but soon to leave it, I hope. He has found a venial guard, and . . . one has agents in Paris, you know, Madame. It is from them that I have learnt the facts about him.”