This protestation made, Francbois went on to state how, from the moment he had seen the prisoner on the Quai, he had recognised him as an Englishman with whom he had been at school in Paris years before; and, consequently, in the interests of his beloved France he had resolved to discover what reasons he might have for being in Liége.
"Was it not possible," De Violaine asked, in his clear, quiet voice, "that the reason the prisoner now gives for his presence here may have been the true one--that he had come from England to escort his compatriot, Mademoiselle Thorne, back to their country?"
"Monsieur, had that been so this Englishman, Bracton, would have proceeded differently. From the moment he landed at Antwerp, almost from the first moment, his actions were marked by deceit and, alas! by wickedness unparalleled. He landed under the assumed name that he has borne here--André de Belleville. When he was recognised as an Englishman by one whom he had deeply injured in earlier days, one whom he had driven to ruin, he passed as an officer of Mousquetaires named Le Blond----"
"Le Blond of the Mousquetaires. He is long since dead. I knew him well."
"And I," said the Comtesse. "He was my cousin."
"Monsieur," said Francbois, "it was that dead man's papers he possessed himself of. The very horse he rides was that of Le Blond."
"How," asked De Violaine, still with ominous calm, "are you acquainted with these matters?"
"Monsieur, the man whom he had so injured tracked him here--tracked him when he had recovered from the wound inflicted on him at St. Trond by the prisoner."
"It is false," Bevill said now, speaking for the first time; "by whomsoever the man may have been wounded at St Trond, that wound was not given by me." While, as he spoke, he learnt for the first time how it was that Sparmann had not denounced him at St. Trond, how it was that he had been enabled to quit St. Trond without molestation.
"In what way," said De Violaine, repeating what he had said before, "are you acquainted with these matters? You tell me that they have happened. What I desire to learn is who you have obtained your knowledge of them?"