"Why not, Monsieur Debrasques?" asked Andrew, looking down at the slight young figure before him.
"Oh! I know not. But say it, say it. Comrades and friends, no matter what befall."
"I say it," the other answered. "Comrades and friends," and he put out his great sunburned hand and took the lad's delicate one in his, while he saw the latter's fair complexion suffuse again, this time with pleasure.
The Marquis did not summon Pierre to escort his visitor to the courtyard door, but, instead, conducted him out himself, carrying in his hand a candelabra of three branches from which the candles therein threw forth a bright light. And by that light Andrew saw far better than he had seen by the taper the serving-man had earlier exchanged for the smoking flambeau, how the great square hall, with its staircase on either side, was filled with paintings of men of various periods--armed and looking, as the boy had said, as if all had been soldiers in their day--and also with pictures of many well-favoured women in whom he seemed to trace something of a likeness to the bright grey eyes and soft complexion of Debrasques. Also he saw a nearly new full-length portrait of a man--the oils were quite fresh, he noticed, and not laid on the canvas many months--a man young and good-looking, though the hair inclined to red, while the eyes, a bright blue, had a steely, menacing glance in them, that gave to their owner a forbidding look which seemed to warn those who gazed at the portrait to take heed how they trusted him whom it depicted.
"Who is that, if I may be so bold as to ask?" inquired Andrew, pausing a moment before this painting. "One of your house, I should suppose, from its being honoured here."
"That!" said the Marquis, "that! Oh! 'tis a cousin of mine on my mother's side. She cared for him--that is why he hangs here."
And, looking down at his host, Andrew saw by the light of the candles that once more the young man's face was deathly pale.
* * * * * *
"What have I stumbled on?" he mused as he sought at last his inn, after having paid the postponed visit to his horse and seen that all was well with it. "What? What? Let me reflect. In the tavern this young Marquis was startled at hearing the name of De Bois-Vallée--that beyond all doubt; in his own house he was even more startled at hearing mine--in his agitation his hand shook so that the glass was broken by the bottle he held in it. There is some connection here! Then the picture of that crafty-looking, blue-eyed cousin whom his mother cared for--cared for! Is he then dead? And if not, who is he? Well, we will see. Time will show. 'Twixt here and Heidelberg is a long ride."
And musing still, and trying to piece one thing with another, Andrew went at last to bed.