“I have no heart for joking, general,” answered Dagobert, more and more saddened by the irritable state of the marshal; “I cannot explain how it happened. Spoil-sport is a good carrier, and no doubt found the letter in the house—”
“And who can have left it there? Am I surrounded by traitors? Do you keep no watch? You, in whom I have every confidence?”
“Listen to me, general—”
But the marshal proceeded, without waiting to hear him. “What! I have made war for five-and-twenty years, I have battled with armies, I have struggled victoriously through the evil times of exile and proscription, I have withstood blows from maces of iron—and now I am to be killed with pins! Pursued into my own house, harassed with impunity, worn out, tortured every minute, to gratify some unknown, miserable hate!—When I say unknown, I am wrong—it is d’Aigrigny, the renegade, who is at the bottom of all this, I am sure. I have in the world but one enemy, and he is the man. I must finish with him, for I am weary of this—it is too much.”
“But, general, remember he is a priest—”
“What do I care for that? Have I not seen him handle the sword? I will yet make a soldier’s blood rise to the forehead of the traitor!”
“But, general—”
“I tell you, that I must be avenged on some one,” cried the marshal, with an accent of the most violent exasperation; “I tell you, that I mast find a living representative of these cowardly plots, that I may at once make an end of him!—They press upon me from all sides; they make my life a hell—you know it—and you do nothing to save me from these tortures, which are killing me as by a slow fire. Can I have no one in whom to trust?”
“General, I can’t let you say that,” replied Dagobert, in a calm, but firm voice.
“And why not?”