"Is this your ring, monsieur?" he asked, while surveying me and it alternately.
"Yes, monseigneur."
"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, with growing perplexity; "this is most singular—most marvellous! Whence had you this ring? for on my honour as peer and maréchal of France, it belonged to my dead wife and was my parting gift to my dear daughter when I left Paris to command the army in Germany."
"I got it, monseigneur, while serving with the first expedition to Brittany," said I, evasively, and to gather time for thought, as the sharp glittering eyes of Bourgneuf were fixed on me with stern scrutiny.
"May I inquire from whom?"
"From Mademoiselle Jacqueline De Broglie on the morning when I saved her life from a galley-slave, a felon escaped from St. Malo, named Theophile Hautois, whom I afterwards flung into the Black Torrent at St. Aubin du Cormier."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Duke.
"Tres bon! Marvellous!" added Monjoy, and all present save Bourgneuf, who muttered audibly the offensive epithet, "Marmiton!"
"I have heard of some of those things," said the Duke, extending his hands to me, "and so I pray you to keep the ring and accept my sincere gratitude for your brave protection of my child. Comte Guillaume De Boisguiller, our kinsman, who commands at St. Malo, has told me of those passages. Bourgneuf, have you nothing to say to the protector of Jacqueline—of your wife?"
The Count had heard, perhaps, more than I wished, for he merely made a French grimace, and presented two fingers of his hand, and then turned on his heel.