"What is it, father?" he said, bending his head.
"What, not an angry word?" asked Lomelini.
"Not one," replied Jean Charost. "I have too many sorrows of my own, father, to add to yours just now."
"Well, then, I will tell you all," said Lomelini. "You think I kept these packets on account of the diamonds. That had something to do with it; but there was more. After you entered the Orleans palace you were trusted more than me. I had been the keeper of all secrets; you became so. The duke's daughter was put under your charge, notwithstanding your youth; and I resolved you should never be able to prove her his daughter."
"I knew not that she was so," replied Jean Charost. "The duke himself knew it not."
"Nay, nay, do not lie," said Lomelini, somewhat bitterly. "I watched you--I watched you both well--I followed you to the convent of the Celestins, where the murderer had taken sanctuary; and I know the child was made over to you then, though you pretended to find it in the forest."
"On my Christian faith, and honor as a knight," replied De Brecy, "I heard nothing either of murderer or child at the convent of the Celestins. The dear babe was; given to me in the forest by a tall, strange, wild-looking man, who seemed to me half crazed."
"St. Florent himself," murmured Lomelini.
"I call Heaven to witness," continued Jean Charost, "I never even suspected any connection between the duke and that child till long after--I am not sure of it even yet."
"Be sure, then," said Lomelini, faintly. "The duke took her mother from that mother's husband--carried her off by force one night as she returned from a great fête, with those very diamonds on her neck."