"I will explain myself. The man of whom I spoke will not purchase your charge because--it is no longer saleable."
"What!" exclaimed the other, rising to his feet, while his hand instinctively sought his sword-hilt. "What? Is this insolence? Explain, I say."
"I will. Yet take your hand from off your sword or I may be forced to draw mine. Likewise, look through that window. Those men are under my command for the time being, not yours----"
"Explain," the Prince repeated, stamping his foot angrily. "If they are not under my immediate command, you are."
"No, I am not. A general warrant for your arrest is out this morning. You are no longer in command of the King's Guards nor any portion of his army. In coming here to-day you have walked into the lion's den. Prince Louis de Beaurepaire, give me your sword. I arrest you on the charge of high treason against your King."
For a moment the Prince stood gazing at the man before him with so strange a look that the other--brave soldier as he was, and one who had given his proofs in many a campaign--scarce knew what might happen next. The handsome face usually so bronzed by the open-air life De Beaurepaire had always led was bloodless now, so, too, were the lips, while the veins upon his forehead looked as though they were about to burst. Yet this transformation was not due to any of those sudden gusts of passion to which he was known to be so often subject when thwarted, or contradicted, or addressed familiarly and on terms of equality by those whom he considered beneath him--as, in truth, he considered most men to be.
Instead, his pallor proceeded from far different emotions that had now taken possession of him. It proceeded from the thought, the recollection which sprang swift as lightning to his mind that, with his arrest, all hope, all chance was gone of warning Emérance, of putting her on her guard and giving her time to escape. This first--above all things--was what almost stilled the beating of his heart; this and his fears for the safety of the bold, daring, reckless woman who loved him so, and who, herself, had thought only of his safety. This--to which was added in a slighter degree the thought that La Truaumont, who had served him well and faithfully while serving his own ends and those of his Norman friends, could no more be warned than she.
"You arrest me!" he said now to De Brissac who stood quietly before him, his eyes upon his face; "you arrest me, you tell me I am removed from any command. Also, you ask me for my sword and hope to obtain it--a thing never asked or hoped for by an enemy. So be it. But, first, I must see your warrant for your demand. If not, you will have----"
"My warrant! Prince Louis, do you think that I should act thus to one who was last night my superior, my commander, if I did not possess a warrant. It is here," and he went to a table covered with papers and took up one of them. After which he added, "The same thing will be in the hands of every officer commanding a garrison or fortress in France as soon as the couriers can reach them."
"I left Louis at six on the night before last," De Beaurepaire said aloud, "and--and--we parted as we have ever parted, as friends." But to himself he added, "An hour later that man might have seen Louis and told him all. An hour after that the couriers might have set out. Had I not tarried at my Lodge, had I but mounted Emérance on another horse at once, we should have been safe, or almost safe, by now."