Then she stopped, confused and silent.
"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed suddenly, "But he has told you nothing!"
"No," I said dully, "He has been most discreet. But does it make any real difference, Mademoiselle, except that I know now that the Marquis was a man of very keen discrimination?"
"Are you mad?" cried Mademoiselle, "I tell you it is not your father. I tell you I—"
Her face had grown scarlet. She bowed her head, and tugged more violently than ever at the corner of her handkerchief.
"Mademoiselle," I said unsteadily, "Mademoiselle, what was it he told you at Blanzy?"
"I cannot tell you if you do not know," she answered, "Indeed I cannot."
"But you will!" I cried. "You will, Mademoiselle! You must!
Mademoiselle—"
Her eyes had met mine again.
"They were breaking in the door," she began, "and he was going down to meet them. I told him—I told him to go, to leave me, and take the paper. He said—"