It was M. Savary dit Detricand.
"Whew—what fools there are in the world! Pish, you silly apes!" the young man said, glancing through the open doorway again to where the connetable's men were dragging two vile-looking ruffians into the Vier Prison.
"What's happened, monsieur?" said Ranulph, closing the door and bolting it.
"What was it, monsieur?" asked Guida anxiously, for painful events had crowded too fast that morning. Detricand was stanching the blood at his temple with the scarf from his neck.
"Get him some cordial, Guida—he's wounded!" said de Mauprat.
Detricand waved a hand almost impatiently, and dropped upon the veille, swinging a leg backwards and forwards.
"It's nothing, I protest—nothing whatever, and I'll have no cordial, not a drop. A drink of water—a mouthful of that, if I must drink."
Guida caught up a hanap of water from the dresser, and passed it to him. Her fingers trembled a little. His were steady enough as he took the hanap and drank off the water at a gulp. Again she filled it and again he drank. The blood was running in a tiny little stream down his cheek. She caught her handkerchief from her girdle impulsively, and gently wiped it away.
"Let me bandage the wound," she said eagerly. Her eyes were alight with compassion, certainly not because it was the dissipated French invader, M. Savary dit Detricand,—no one knew that he was the young Comte de Tournay of the House of Vaufontaine, but because he was a wounded fellow- creature. She would have done the same for the poor beganne, Dormy Jamais, who still prowled the purlieus of St. Heliers.
It was clear, however, that Detricand felt differently. The moment she touched him he became suddenly still. He permitted her to wash the blood from his temple and forehead, to stanch it first with brandied jeru- leaves, then with cobwebs, and afterwards to bind it with her own kerchief.