"Do you remember this morning at the Louvre?" answered Rufin. "I told you then that if Margot, my wench, keeps the appointment she made with me, I shall then believe in the sincerity of the Regent, but not before!"
"Young man," put in Marcel with severity, seeing his wife and niece blush at the amorous confidences of the student, "is it for the purpose of cracking bad jokes that you have come to alarm my household?"
"The news I bring will be an apology, Master Marcel," respectfully answered Rufin mopping his forehead that streamed with perspiration; "the Regent has fled from Paris...."
"The Regent has fled!" cried Marcel stupefied. "Impossible! It is hardly half an hour since I was with him."
"And that is less time than he needed to descend from the Louvre, to go out by the postern gate that opens upon the river outside of the barrier and to jump upon a skiff that was waiting for him!"
"You are dreaming!" replied Jocelyn, while Marcel seemed thunderstruck, unable to understand what he heard. "You are dreaming, my gay Rufin, or you have just left some tavern the fumes of whose wine have upset your mind."
"By Bacchus, the god of wine, and by Morpheus, the god of slumbers!" cried the student, "I am as certain that I am wide awake as that I am not drunk! I saw the Regent with my two eyes step into the vessel, and with my two ears I heard the Regent say to the friend who accompanied him: 'I leave this accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' Is that clear enough? Moreover, would I dare come here and tell yarns to Master Marcel, whom I admire and respect as much as any one could? And above all when, in the teeth of the privileges of the University, he had me housed at the Chatelet, together with my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned because of the racket we made one night on the street?" Noticing that despite certain irrelevant details of his report, the people in the chamber began to attach faith to his words, Rufin continued, while Marcel seemed racked with painful astonishment and a prey to overpowering indignation: "As I was telling you, I had an assignation with my wench Margot, on the river bank, outside the barriers. Tired of waiting in vain for this fallacious creature, I was about to leave when I perceived a lighted lantern on the other side of the barrier and just under the postern of the Louvre. Knowing as well as anybody that the vaulted corridor of that issue runs out on one of the stairs of the large tower, a suspicion flashed through my mind. The night was silent. At the risk of drowning and of going to Pluto to meet Margot, only this time on the borders of the Styx, I reached the stairs by clambering along the poles and the chain of the barriers. At that moment the bearer of the lantern, who must have meant to make sure that the vessel was there, re-entered the palace. I slid along the wall of the Louvre up to the postern and there, screened by the gate which was left open, I soon heard a voice saying: 'Come, come, Sire; the vessel and the two boats are near the shore.' At which the Regent answered in the way I have just stated to Master Marcel—'I leave the accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' The Regent and his companion marched quietly to the bank of the river, and soon the sound of oars told me that the boat was leaving rapidly. It vanished in the darkness of the night." Turning to Jocelyn with a triumphant air, the student remarked: "Well, what did I tell you this morning? You took me for a fool! And now you see the Regent has fled from Paris threatening the inhabitants with vengeance! By the bowels of the Pope! The belief in fatalism is a great thing!"
Learning that Marcel was now running fresh dangers, Marguerite exchanged glances of anxiety with Denise, while seeking to conceal her alarm from her husband lest she increased his worries. On the other hand, foreseeing that the Regent's treason would hasten the uprising of the rustic serfs, Caillet shrugged his shoulders with sinister gladness. Finally, Marcel, with his arms crossed upon his breast, his head lowered, his lips contracted with a bitter smile, broke the silence with these words uttered deliberately: "When we parted the Regent said to me: 'My good father, I beseech you, go and take a little rest; night is falling; I desire to-morrow early to renew our work with fresh ardor. Go and take rest, my good father, and you will enjoy as much as myself the restful sleep that will come to us from knowledge of having done right.' Such were the last words I had from that young man."
"Oh, Marcel," said Marguerite, "how will you not regret the confidence you placed in him!"
"Let us never regret having had faith in the repentance of a man. If we do, we shall become merciless. Moreover, there are treasons so black and monstrous that in order to suspect them one must be almost capable of committing them." After another short interval of contemplative silence Marcel resumed: "I hoped to save Gaul fresh bloodshed! Vain hope! That unhappy fool wants war! How much is he not to be pitied for being so ill-advised!"