"What did she say?"
"Knowing that I had previously arrested you, she thanked me for also making her a prisoner."
"Thanked you! Heavens!" De Beaurepaire whispered to himself, "it was a heart to win. How many of those others would have thanked De Brissac for that! Rather would they have told all, have witnessed against me and invented all they did not know, so that, thereby, they might set themselves free." And again he exclaimed aloud, "she thanked you!"
"Ay, it is so. While adding, as she spoke and smiled on me, that, since she could not be at large and free to share your liberty, her next greatest joy was to be beneath the same prison roof with you."
De Beaurepaire turned away as the other told him this; turned away because, perhaps, he knew that the tears had come into his eyes and he would not have De Brissac see them there. Yet the latter--from whom the prisoner would have hidden those tears and, it may be, all other signs of emotion which he knew well enough were on his face--comprehended that they were there as easily as he comprehended all that now racked and tore at the heart of the once strong and masterful man before him. Wherefore, to ease that racked heart, De Brissac added:--
"I likewise arrested the bully who calls himself Fleur de Mai, and the Jew atheist, Van den Enden. And they too are firm, very firm. Listen, De Beaurepaire, and, as you do so, deem me no traitor since I am none such, but only one who has fought by your side and, later, taken the word of command from you. Listen, I say. De Louvois, La Reynie, will have to seek further than the walls of this prison to obtain the conviction of any of you. If you and those who are here can be as solidly, ay! and as stolidly, silent as you all are now, if you can hold your peace and acknowledge nothing and deny nothing, they will have trouble in bringing proof against you. H'st! the Lieutenant comes. My friendship, my old comradeship with you has forced me to say this. Think no evil of me for saying so much."
"God bless you," whispered De Beaurepaire huskily, while wondering as he did so how long it was since such words had fallen from his lips, and wondering, too, of how much or little good the prayer could be productive. Nevertheless, he knew that they had been wrung from his heart by De Brissac's friendly care for his safety, and recognised that, evil as his life had been, he had at that moment no power of repressing those words.
"It is the hour when the Commission will sit," the Lieutenant du Roi said to De Brissac, "the Prince de Beaurepaire must tarry no longer. En avant!" he cried now to the soldiers who had once more surrounded the prisoner as their leader came forward, "en avant!"
"Farewell!" De Beaurepaire said to De Brissac as he set out again. "Farewell!"
"Nay," De Brissac replied, "not farewell, instead au revoir!"