"You should have told me this before," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, in a very sharp tone.
"Why, what time had we to tell you any thing, monseigneur?" asked the wounded man's brother.
"At all events, we tell you now," growled Brin; "and this talking is not likely to do me good. The lad is as fierce as a young wolf. He threatened to shoot me once before; but he is a pet of the cardinal,—one of his own people, for aught we know,—and, now that you are told he is so, you may use him as you think fit. It is no fault of ours: we have not hurt him."
It is probable that the interview was less satisfactory to the Count de Bourbonne than he had expected; for he brought it speedily to a conclusion, and Edward for full half an hour after heard the two men above talking together in the language he did not understand. At the end of that time the bolt of the door was undrawn, and the soldier who had previously brought him bread and water appeared again, with somewhat of a grin upon his face.
"Well, young gentleman," he said, "Monsieur le Comte begs you will send him up the safe-conduct you mentioned to him. After seeing that, perhaps they may treat you better."
"Tell him I will not!" said Edward, in a resolute tone: "he may come and take it from me by force,—or he may see it here in my presence; but I give it out of my own hands to no one,—especially not to one who has treated me unlike a soldier and a gentleman. Tell him what I say."
The soldier laughed. "'Pon my word, you are a bold one!" he said. "Do you not know you are quite in his power?"
"Not so much as you think," replied Edward: "I am not the least afraid of him. Tell him exactly what I say."
A full hour passed; and probably it was spent in some degree of anxious and hesitating deliberation between Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Count de Boulogne, his father-in-law, for they remained the whole of that time shut up together in a small room on the second floor. One can easily conceive that it was a hard thing for a proud and irritable man to make any concession to a mere lad who set him at defiance in language somewhat tinged with contempt. But a bold face stoutly kept up has a great effect upon most men; and if Edward had known the count intimately he could not (though it was entirely accidental) have chosen his course better. De Bourbonne was brave, and even rash; but he had a terrible reverence for power, and, when he found the youth's account of himself confirmed even by the very man whose life he had nearly taken, fancy conjured up all sorts of ministerial indignation, and showed him the service he had rendered in the capture of Lord Montagu—on which he had based many gorgeous dreams—more than counterbalanced in the eyes of Richelieu by his treatment of one of the cardinal's favorites. Monsieur de Boulogne, too, an older and milder man, strongly counselled moderation and gentleness, somewhat censured what had been already done, and advised recourse to measures perhaps too directly and suddenly opposed.
Still, pride struggled hard with De Bourbonne. He vowed he did not and would not believe the tale which he had heard. What hold, he asked, could a mere fierce English lad have upon the cardinal? and for some time his father-in-law reminded him in vain that Richelieu, though a wonderfully great man, was somewhat capricious in his affections, suggested that, as he was not a little superstitious, too, in regard to astrology and the occult sciences, he might find some imaginary connection between the youth's fate and his own, and pointed out that it was utterly improbable Edward should treat him with such daring disrespect if he was not certain of some very strong support.