"Master Matteus, you are kindness personified; and I am sure you must have the confidence of the prince. Yes, certainly, I will write since you are generous enough to feel an interest in the Chevalier."
"It is true I feel a greater interest in him than in any other, for he saved my life at the risk of his own. He attended and dressed my wounds, and replaced the property I had lost. He passed nights watching me, as if he had been my servant, and I his master. He saved a niece of mine from degradation, and by his good advice and kind words made her an honest woman. How much good he has done in this country, and they say in all Europe. He is the best young man that exists, and his highness loves him as if he were his son."
"Yet his highness sends him to prison for a trifling fault?"
"Madame does not know that in his highness's eyes no fault is trifling which is indiscreet."
"He is then an absolute prince?"
"Admirably just, yet terribly severe."
"How, then, can I interest his mind and the decisions of his council?"
"I know not, madame is well aware. Many secret things are done in this castle, especially when the prince comes to pass a few weeks here, which does not often happen. A poor servant like myself, who dared to pry into them, would not be be long tolerated; and as I am the oldest of the household, madame must see I am neither curious nor gossiping—else——"
"I understand, Master Matteus; but would it be indiscreet to ask if the imprisonment to which the Chevalier is subjected is rigorous?"
"It must be, madame; yet I know of nothing that passes in the tower and dungeon. I have seen many go in, and none come out. I know not whether there be outlets in the forest, but there are none in the park."