"Heavens!" he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment the perfect courtesy and deference which had marked his manner to her from the first. "What are you? Speak. Are you English or French? Yet, no," he continued. "No. There is the faintest intonation, though it has to be sought for; the faintest suspicion of an accent that betrays you. Madame," he exclaimed, not rudely, but only in a tone born of extreme surprise, "what are you--English or French?"
"French," she replied, while still speaking in perfect English; "but I have lived much in England, and--it may be that I shall die there."
"I cannot understand."
"You shall not be left long without doing so. Monsieur, as I must still address you, it is more than twenty years since I first went to England with my father, though I have returned to France more than once during those years. Now I have returned yet again. And--you have confided in me; I will be equally frank with you--listen. I am a Protestant."
"A Protestant!" Bevill exclaimed. "A Protestant? Ah! I begin to understand. A Protestant opposed to this war; linked with us against Spain and France; desirous of seeing these two great Catholic Powers subdued----"
"Alas!" the Comtesse said, "I cannot claim so noble an excuse for being here in the midst of this war. My presence here is more selfish, more personal. I--I--have suffered. God, He knows, how all of mine have suffered in the South----"
"You are from the South?"
"I am. From Tarascon. You saw me start when you spoke of that unutterable villain, Montrével. Montrével," she repeated, with bitter scorn; "Field-marshal and swashbuckler! Montrével, born a Protestant, but now of the Romish faith. A man who has persecuted us cruelly--one who even now desires to be sent to the Cevennes to persecute us still further."
Then, suddenly, the Comtesse ceased what she was saying, and, changing from the subject, exclaimed:
"But come--come. We have tarried here too long. We should be once more on our road to Liége. How do you propose to present yourself at the gates and gain admission to the city? You will run deep risks if you appear under the guise of a mousquetaire; for"--and now she took out a scroll of paper from the huge pocket let into the leather padding of her coach and looked at it, "there are two troops of the Mousquetaires Noirs at the Chartreuse."