"Denounced! Naturally, I do not desire to be informed of the name of my denouncer. I know it--and I pity him."
De Violaine looked at her for a moment; then, turning towards Bevill, he said:
"Monsieur, the name on your passport is not your name. You are, I am informed, an Englishman and a spy."
"I am an Englishman, monsieur. I am no spy."
"That you will have to prove, as well as your object in being here in any position except that of a spy. For the present you will be detained at the citadel. The gate," he said, addressing the Duc de Guise, "will be opened no more to-night."
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
Through all that had taken place in the guardroom, M. de Violaine had conducted himself as a gallant gentleman, and neither in his tone, words, nor bearing had there been any of that hectoring or browbeating towards one who, if he was what he had been denounced as being, might well have been subjected to such treatment.
For a spy, found in a city subject to those who were already sore pressed by the very country to which that supposed spy belonged, could scarcely look for gentle treatment at the hands of one who was in command of the principal fortress of that city; while, polished as the French noblesse and gentry might be, soldiering was conducted with a considerable amount of roughness at this time, and it was the habit of all in command in the chief European armies--which were the armies of England and France alone--to treat suspected prisoners with scant consideration.
Yet Bevill could not complain of any roughness on the part of the man whose captive he now was. De Violaine, except that his manner was cold and austere towards him, had behaved as well as one gentleman brought into contact with another, and that other the subject of a hostile country, could have been expected to behave. For all of which there was a reason, over and above the fact that the prisoner was undoubtedly the friend of the woman whom De Violaine had once loved tenderly and hoped to win, as well as apparently something more than a friend of the beautiful companion of the Comtesse--that stately, handsome girl from whose eyes the tears had fallen fast in compassion for the man who was now his prisoner.
This reason was that he had been face to face with the denouncer of Bevill, and, later, with Bevill himself--the denounced--and the first had impressed him unfavourably, while the second, Englishman though he was, had produced a vastly different effect on him.