Into his eyes the fool gazed closely, as if to read and test this unexpected statement.
"Got away!" he repeated. "How, since you knew?"
"Because I learned too late," quietly replied the free baron. "He was four-and-twenty hours gone when I found out. Too great a start to be overcome."
"Why should you tell me this—unless it is a lie?" coolly asked the jester.
"A lie!" exclaimed the visitor, frowning.
"Yes, like your very presence in Francis' court," added the fool, fearlessly.
In the silence ensuing the passion slowly faded from the countenance of the king's guest. He remembered he had not yet ascertained what he wished to know.
"Such recriminations from you remind me of a bird beating its wings against the bars of its cage," at length came the unruffled response. "Why should I lie? There is no need for it. You sent Caillette; he is on his way now, for all of me. For"—leading to the thread of what he sought—"why should I have stopped him? He embarked on a hopeless chase. How can he reach Austria and the emperor in time to prevent the marriage?"
The jester's swift questioning glance was not lost upon the speaker, who, after a pause, continued. "Had I known, I am not sure I would have prevented his departure. What better way to dispose of him than to let him go on a mad-cap journey? Besides, you must have forgotten about the passes. How could you expect him to get by my sentinels? It will attract less attention to have him stopped there than here."
All this, spoken brusquely, was accompanied by frank, insolent looks which beneath their seeming openness concealed an intentness of purpose and a shrewd penetration. Only the first abrupt change in the fool's look, a slight one though it was, betrayed the jester to his caller. In that swiftly passing gleam, as the free baron spoke of Austria, and not of Spain, the other read full confirmation of what he desired to know.