His Excellency still answered no word; only looked down, and, knitting his brows, the young nobleman restlessly waited. At length, with an expression on his face the Marquis had never before seen there, his Excellency rose, moved like an automaton to the bell, and called for the jailer.
"Monsieur le Marquis has a few instructions to give you." The Governor's voice, but a breath, told what the words cost him.
The man responded gravely, looking from one to the other.
"Use your own judgment in the matter, my Lord," went on his Excellency, and left them together.
After that, a change, subtle but deep-rooted, came over the Governor; a silent man always, now his taciturnity became most marked. Under stress of untoward circumstances, all the guests at the Mount, save the young noble, departed; but his Excellency appeared hardly to notice their going; drawing his cloak of reserve closer about him, seemed only to ask for that solitude, not difficult to find in his aërial kingdom. Sometimes for a long while he would stand in the cloister, gazing seaward; again wander in the church, look at the monuments, always to pass one of them quickly. Only on a single occasion, when the Marquis, who was daily becoming more nervous, sought him, with a favorable report of his prisoner-patient, did the Governor give sign that beneath this apparent apathy yet stirred malevolence and rancor.
"Yes, yes," he returned, a spark of ill-concealed venom in his glance; "he is doing well, no doubt! I am sure he will do well. But well or ill, I wish to hear no more of him! No more, Monsieur le Marquis!" His voice vibrated; surprised, the kinsman of the King stared, then stiffly turned away.
So matters stood, when one day, alone in the cloister, his Excellency was disturbed by a rough-looking fellow who brought a letter and said he would await the reply at the tavern in the town.
Deliberately the Governor took the missive, tore open the envelope, and surveyed the small bit of paper it contained. Whatever the brief message told him, his Excellency's face did not change, and he was still coldly, carefully studying sentences and words, after his fashion, when through the door my lord, the Marquis, stepped in some haste. Lifting his eyes, the Governor had no difficulty in reading the question on the young man's countenance. For a moment they looked at each other, and then the long, white fingers of his Excellency again sought the letter.
"They," his voice seemed to clip the words, "propose an exchange of prisoners, and give me three days to consent to it!"