"If in your opinion it is wise to encourage him in this ambition, advise your most humble——"
"Good! good!" cried the marquis. "Here we have the wherewithal to make trouble between our friend Poulain and monsieur le prince, and between them both and the memory of dear Monsieur d'Alvimar. God knows that my choice would be to let that dead man rest in peace; but if they threaten to avenge him, we will let the kind friends who pity him know him as he really was."
"That is all very well," said pretty Madame de Beuvre, "on condition that you can prove that these notes were written by his hand."
"True," replied the marquis, "without that they will not help us. But doubtless Guillaume will be able to provide us with a letter signed by him."
"That is probable; and you must look to it at once, my dear marquis!"
"In that case," said the marquis, kissing her hand as he wished her good-night—for she had risen to retire—"in that case I will return to Guillaume's to-morrow; meanwhile let us be very careful of our proofs and our weapons."
On waking the next morning, the marquis found Lucilio in his room, who handed him a sheet upon which he had written something for him to read.
The poor fellow proposed that he should go away for a time, in order that the storm which threatened them both might not burst upon his generous friend more quickly because of his presence.
"No, no!" cried Bois-Doré, deeply touched; "surely you will not wound me to the heart by leaving me! The danger is postponed, that is clear enough to all of us; and Monsieur d'Alvimar's notes make me feel perfectly secure so far as I am concerned. As for yourself, rest assured that you have nothing to fear from the prince, having so accurately announced the favorite's death. Moreover, whatever risk you may run by remaining here, I think that it would be much greater elsewhere, and only in this province can I protect you effectively or conceal you, as circumstances require. Let us not worry about the unknown; and if you are afraid of adding to the embarrassment of my position, think of this—that without you, Mario's education is a hopeless failure. Think of the service you render me by transforming a lovable child into a man of brain and heart, and you will realize that neither my fortune nor my life can pay my debt to you, for both together are not equivalent to the learning and virtue which we owe to you."
Having, not without difficulty, extorted from his friend a promise not to leave Briantes without his assent, the marquis was about to start for Ars once more, when Guillaume arrived with Monsieur Robin de Coulogne, the latter greatly surprised by what his farmer Faraudet had told him that morning, the former surprised that he had not received a visit from the marquis during the evening, as his servants had led him to expect.