"Saxe is explicit, you can question him when he has finished," answered
Commines coldly. For him the King stood behind Jean Saxe, and no mere
denial would content Louis or set his fears at rest. "Go on, Saxe.
The King would suspect the truth?"
"So he said, monseigneur, and so there was need for haste," said Saxe.
"Then why wait two days before telling Monsieur d'Argenton? Why wait two days before warning the King? Why wait until Hugues was dead?"
"There was a courier from Valmy to-day," said Villon, speaking for the first time, and, as it seemed, irrelevantly.
Commines turned upon him sharply. "What has that to do with it? He brought letters from the King addressed to me. Monsieur La Mothe knows their contents."
"And for Jean Saxe," retorted Villon; "letters from the King for Jean
Saxe and Monsieur d'Argenton!"
"Ah!" said mademoiselle the second time, "so that is why Monsieur d'Argenton is in Amboise."
"That is why," answered Commines, his hand stretched out in denunciation. "At Valmy we more than guessed your treason. But it was hard to believe that a woman could so corrupt a boy, that a son could so conspire against a father, and I came to Amboise probing the truth. And every day proof has piled upon proof, presumptive proof I grant, but proof damning and conclusive nevertheless. Every day the King has been held up to loathing and contempt. Every day the woman—you, Mademoiselle de Vesc, you—egged on the boy to worse than disaffection. Every day the son reviled the father, even to telling God's own priest that his one thought was hate—everlasting hate. The spirit to hurt and the accursed will were there, more shameless every day, more shameless and more insolent; but until to-day, until Jean Saxe spoke, there was no proof that the courage to act, the courage to carry out the evident ill desire was callously plotting to set France shuddering with horror. But Saxe has spoken. That he should have spoken earlier is beside the point. He has spoken at last and the truth is stripped bare."
"No truth," said mademoiselle, "no truth; before God, no truth." She was rigidly upright in her chair, her eyes blazing like cold stars, her face very pale. Every limb, every muscle, was trembling, her hand pressed under her breast as when La Mothe had seen her for the first time. "No truth except that the Dauphin has said unwise things at times and I also. To that I confess."
"You confess because you cannot deny," answered Commines, "and had Hugues not tampered with Saxe the truth might never have been known until all France stood aghast at the tragedy. That Hugues is dead matters nothing. His death does not affect the issue. He would have denied it had he lived. But now we know without a doubt that you and he, and that unhappy boy, the Dauphin—Villon, who is that fumbling at the latch? Let no one in, and bid whoever knocks begone whence he came."