"Bah! Bah!" De Brissac replied in a low voice, so that the man in question could not hear his words, "what should I have to say to him that can do harm, since on me has fallen the task of arresting all these conspirators. Is De Brissac to be regarded now as one of the joyous troop! Yet, let us remember that he and you and I have all been soldiers together, and--Bon-Dieu!--good ones too; let us be as kind to him as we may. Remember, too, that he is not tried yet, therefore he is not yet pronounced guilty."
"If--if," replied the Lieutenant, "it is no communication from any of the other prisoners; no message from----"
"Peste! I have a message from, or rather an account of--since he of whom I speak can send no messages now--one who is dead. The birds you have got fast in this cage are all alive--for the present."
"Is it about----?"
"It is." After which De Brissac advanced towards De Beaurepaire while the Lieutenant du Roi gave an order to the soldiers to stand apart from their charge during the time he conferred with the Colonel of the Garde du Corps, and commenced to pace up and down the floor of the Armoury himself.
"What is it, De Brissac?" De Beaurepaire said now, on observing that the others had all withdrawn out of earshot. "What? Have you come to tell me that you have at last found more suspects for this charge? I hear--for, even in this hideous place, whispers filter through the very walls and reach us--that you and your master, De Louvois, seek to ensnare half the noblesse of France within the net you throw broadcast."
"Nay," De Brissac said, understanding yet not resenting the bitterness of the other, since he recognised how justifiable such bitterness was, if--as many people thought and openly said--De Beaurepaire's name had been freely used by the Norman conspirators without his knowledge; "nay. Instead, on seeing you here I have come to inform you of that which may bring some calm to your spirit. That fellow over there--Boisfleury--can tell the whole story of how the young Englishman was first of all nearly done to death by the vagabond, La Preaux, while, to make the certainty of death more great, he was afterwards cast into the Rhine by him."
"What! Why! La Truaumont----" but he paused. If he repeated to De Brissac what La Truaumont had told him, then, at once, he divulged that he and the latter had been in communication with each other. Added to which he knew also, perhaps by those very whispers which, a moment before, he had said even filtered through the walls of the Bastille, that La Truaumont had been in some strange way denounced to De Louvois and La Reynie as one of the principal leaders of the conspiracy, and he understood that it was madness to appear to be in possession of any information furnished by him. Nevertheless, he had mentioned La Truaumont's name ere he could collect himself and De Brissac had heard him do so.
"La Truaumont!" the other exclaimed, while the strange look that was so apparent at times came into his face. "La Truaumont!" Then, as though desirous of helping De Beaurepaire out of a snare into which he had inadvertently fallen, he said, "Ah! yes. It is so. He was in your service. Did he not ride to Nancy for you?"
"To Basle in the escort of the Duchesse de Castellucchio. Afterwards he was to go forward with her to Geneva on the road to Milan. Has he--have they?" he asked, continuing his attempt to throw dust in De Brissac's eyes, or, perhaps, with the wish to prevent it appearing that he and La Truaumont had met in Paris recently, "have they arrived in Italy?"