"Never have met!" Andrew repeated. "Never have met!" Then, after a moment's pause, he said: "Debrasques, there must be no concealment between us, come what may. It is to meet him that I am here. I have one thing to do--you need no telling what that thing is."
"I can guess. To slay the man who stole your promised wife."
"My promised wife!" looking down at him. "My promised wife!"
"Why, yes! Was she not? I had a friend in England who knew something of his villainy."
"Had she been my promised wife and fled with him thus, she might have gone hang, and, for the matter of that, so might he. No woman who could do as that woman did would have been worth a pair of crossed swords. But, unhappily for him--for this cousin of yours--the treachery was committed by them both against one whom I loved better than myself--the gentlest soul on earth, and unable to avenge himself."
"Another Vause! Had I known that, my trepidation would not have been so great when you saw his picture--when he passed us two hours ago."
"Ay! Another Vause, my elder brother. But it makes no matter, except that, as I tell you, I shall avenge him far more than I should avenge myself. Debrasques," and he put his hand on the neck of the boy's horse as it trotted side by side with his own, "Debrasques, there is no need of concealment nor of lies and deception on my part. Listen! We stand on the threshold of a new friendship, yet, though that friendship will perforce wither and die through my future actions, I must perform them. My friend until to-morrow, at least--I am here in the Palatinate to slay your cousin."
"Yet--yet," the lad stammered, scarce knowing what to say, "that was not your intent when first we met. You said then you had returned to France to join the army."
"I returned to France to find him. But, ere I knew of the evil he had done my brother, I had procured from King Charles letters to Turenne commanding here, to Condé commanding in Flanders, one even to King Louis in command of his army in Franche-Comté, and another to Colonel Churchill now with us, for I had to be a soldier again. But, when I learnt from my brother's dying lips of what this Vicomte had done, I knew that, with those letters in my possession, I could make my way to wherever he might be. I had heard," and Andrew looked terribly grim as he uttered these last words, "that this man had the skill of a maître d'armes, therefore I supposed him a soldier. In Paris, on the night I met you, I learnt that he was one. Then my resolve was taken."
"Will nothing shake it?"