"And how am I to act when I have got this letter?" asked Estoc.
"Ay, that is the question!" replied the priest. "As yet you do not know all these people's intentions, and it is necessary that you should be informed of all, in order that you should be prepared for whatever it may be necessary to do. You are resolute and fearless, I know, and have before now done much with small means and a strong hand. You may be called upon before many hours are over, to use the sword in defence of right and justice."
"That I am quite ready to do," replied Estoc. "It is but wiles and cunning I fear, for there I am no match for your good Marchioness. But let me hear, father, what are her plans and purposes?"
"These," answered Walter de la Tremblade: "Some of them, I have already frustrated; but I know that, failing these, she will have recourse to force to effect the marriage of her base son with Mademoiselle d'Albret; for she has built up a scheme for his aggrandizement, which nothing will make her abandon, but death. Even perhaps his pre-contract with Helen, she will attempt to pass over by bold authority;" and he proceeded succinctly to display to the eyes of Estoc, the whole plans and purposes of Madame de Chazeul.
"But will Monsieur de Liancourt consent?" exclaimed Estoc. "He is honest at heart--I believe on my life he wishes well."
"But he is weak," replied the priest; "weak as the water of the stream, which may be turned by art whithersoever we will; yet when bent in a particular course, and concentrated within a narrow channel, moves mighty machines, and carries all before it. He is now entirely in the hands of this woman. I am no longer near him to guide him and to counteract her, and you will see that he will do her bidding, like a servant or a dog."
"Force, against force, then," answered Estoc, "and I think myself well justified in using the means I possess, to bring my men in hither. The passage through the wall between the two doors will hold us all, for we are not so many as I could wish; but I will be ready to appear at the first sign."
"How many are you?" asked the priest.
"Seventeen," replied Estoc; "but there are stout men amongst us, well trained to hard blows."
"There are eight and twenty in the château," answered Walter de la Tremblade, "and some of them good men at arms too."