"If," he said, when at last they were seated in an inn off the new Rue Richelieu to which he had led St. Georges, "there is anything to which you owe your freedom more than another, it is to the fact that the king must recognise that you are in truth le Duc de Vannes, the son of his earliest friend. Yet—yet"—he continued in an embarrassed manner—"he would not even allow that that should influence him—when—I pleaded for you."
"But it did—it did, Boussac, it did. He must have pondered on it afterward—perhaps reflected on how unjustly I had been treated by his vile minister, Louvois—you say he died in disgrace?—and that may have—nay, must have, turned his heart. O Boussac! how am I ever to repay you? Without your thought and exertions what should I have been now?" and he shuddered as he spoke.
"Oh! la! la!" said Boussac, "never mind about me. The question is now what do you intend to do in the future?"
"Do!" exclaimed St. Georges. "Do! Why, that which I returned to France to do, fought against France for—obtain my child. Boussac, where is that woman now?"
"Woman!—what woman?"
"Ah! Boussac, do not joke. You know very well to what woman I refer. That young tigress—in her way almost as vile as the woman Louvigny!—the woman who stole my child."
"Mademoiselle de Roquemaure?"
"Ay, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure! That is the name. Oh Boussac! you have given me more than my life, far more. The power to wrench my child away from her keeping, to stand before her a freed man, the king's pardon in my hand, and tax her with her treachery."
"You will do that?"
"Do it! What am I going to Troyes for—to-night?"