Yet when he was alone in the house which he occupied at Nîmes his mind was ill at ease. Ill at ease because, in the calm bearing of this prisoner, in the contempt which that prisoner had shown for him and his authority as he flung his sword at his feet, he saw something which was neither guilt nor fear. Instead, contempt and scorn.
Also he had said "Urbaine Ducaire lives, is well, happy," and in saying it had spoken as one speaks who utters truth.
Yet how could he believe that such as this could be possible? Montglas, whose life had been at this man's mercy as he entered the stable-yard, had seen the other in the mêlée, had seen him tear Urbaine from the coach, lift her on to his horse, ride off with her. To what, to where? To death, to the mountains where the Protestants sheltered. And, if further confirmation was needed, had he not caused to be brought before him one who had escaped from the massacre of the Château St. Servas, one who plainly told how ere the Camisards attacked the castle disguised as royalists, this man, the Englishman as he now knew him to be, had brought Urbaine there, to wait doubtless for his accomplices? Also that very day he had heard, had been told by some who had returned from Cette, that among the Cévenoles who had been on the beach waiting for the landing of the English, this man had been recognised. His own spies had seen him; there could be no possibility of doubt.
"Yet if, after all, they should be wrong," he mused to himself; "if, after all, Montglas, the escaped one from St. Servas, the spy, should be deceived! Or, not being deceived, Urbaine should still live! What then? What if in truth he has in some manner managed to protect her, to save her! What then?"
Even as he muttered these words, these surmises, he wiped the heat drops from his brow. For--and now almost he prayed that this man might be lying--if all were wrong in what they accused him of, if instead of leading Urbaine to her death he had saved, protected her, all the same he was doomed. Doomed beyond hope!
He had communicated with Paris, with Chamillart, with the woman who ruled the King, had asked for information about this stranger who stated that he was a kinsman of the de Rochebazons in search for one who was the De Rochebazon himself, and not a week since had received in return his orders from Paris. Orders written by De Maintenon's own private secretary to arrest the man, to put him on trial as an English spy found in France during a time of war, orders to have him condemned and executed without appeal--his nationality, which was undoubted, to be the justification for that execution.
And again, as he remembered this, Baville almost prayed that Martin's words might not be true, prayed that, if they were true and Urbaine still lived and was safe, he at least might not prove to be her saviour.
Her saviour! Yet doomed to lose his life at the hands of the man who worshipped the girl, the man who, instead of doing that saviour to death, should, instead, have poured out at his feet all that would have gone to make his life happy, prosperous, and contented.