"I would to God your cause, my own faith, could prosper here. We have gone through much stress ourselves to make it secure and safe in England. Discarded our king, who was of the family more dearly loved in England than any that have ever sat on her throne, yet we were forced to do it. But the Protestants of England can make a stronger boast than those of your land, Monsieur Cavalier. They alone have suffered; they never retaliated as you have done."
"As we were forced to retaliate," he exclaimed, striking the table in his excitement. "My God! think of what we have suffered. And not our men alone, but our wives, our sisters, our old mothers. Have you ever seen a gray-haired woman stripped and beaten in a market place? Have you ever seen a young innocent girl stretched naked on a wheel, the shame of her exposure even more frightful than the blows of la massue? Have you ever stood on board a galley laden with Protestant slaves or smelled the burning flesh of old men at the stake? We have, we of these mountain deserts, and--and--my God!" while even as he spoke he wept, brushing the tears from his eyes fiercely, "I wonder that that girl, Urbaine Ducaire, is still alive, Protestant though she be. Wonder she is spared, since she is the loved treasure of that tiger, Baville."
"Protestant though she be!" Martin repeated. "You know that? From some surer source than the divinations, the revelations of La Grande Marie?"
"I know it," Cavalier said, facing round suddenly on him, "I know it now for certain. Ducaire was a Protestant living at Mont Joyre. I have discovered all. And I curse the discovery! For otherwise we would have repaid Baville a thousandfold for all his crimes, wrung his heartstrings as he has wrung ours for years, slaughtered his pet lamb as he has slaughtered hundreds of ours. But she is a Protestant, therefore safe."
"When will you release her, let her return to him?"
"Ho! la, la!" the other replied. "That must be thought upon. Even now she is a great hostage in our hands, a card that may win the trick. And--and--you and she are very intimate; yet can I tell you something without fear of its being repeated to her?"
"I will respect any confidence you place in me so long as it thrusts not against her welfare."
"It will not do that. Yet listen. Ere she leaves us there is something to be told her as regards Baville's friendship for her father, Ducaire. And, when she has heard that, it may be she will never wish to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again."
"My God! What is to become of her then?"
For reply Cavalier only laughed. Then he said: