Gonzague was left alone, indeed, only in a sense, for on a sudden the great hall with its famous pictures had become the theatre of fierce emotions and menacing presences. Just at the moment when Gonzague believed his schemes to be at their best and his fortunes to be nearing their top, he was suddenly threatened with the renewal of the old terror that had been kept at bay through all the years that had passed since the night of Caylus. Through all these years Lagardere had been kept from Paris, at the cost, indeed, as he believed, of many lives, but that was a price Louis de Gonzague was always prepared to pay when the protection of his own life was in question. Now it would seem as if Lagardere had broken his exile, had forced his way through the thicket of swords, and was again in Paris. Nor was this the worst. Just when Gonzague, after all his failures to trace the missing child of his victim, just when he had so ingeniously found a substitute for that missing child, it would really seem as if the child herself, now a woman, had come to Paris to defy him and to destroy his plans. He sat huddled with black thoughts for a time which seemed to him an age, but was in reality not more than a few moments; then, extending his hand, he struck a bell and a servant entered.
"Tell Peyrolles I want him," the prince commanded, and was again alone with his dreads and his dangers until Peyrolles appeared. Gonzague turned to his factotum. "I have reason to suspect that Lagardere is in Paris. If it be true, he will come too late. The princess will have accepted the gypsy as her child, the mother’s voice will have spoken. If Lagardere is in Paris, he and the girl must be found, and once found—"
The ivory-like face of Peyrolles was quickened with a cunning look. "I have a man who will find him if any one can."
Gonzague turned upon him sharply. "Who is it?"
"Monseigneur," said Peyrolles, "I have at my disposal, and at the disposal of your highness, a very remarkable man, the hunchback Æsop. He was in the moat of Caylus that night. He, with those two you saw yesterday, are the only ones left, except—"
Peyrolles paused for a moment, and his pale face worked uncomfortably. Gonzague interpreted his thought. "Except you and me, you were going to say."
Peyrolles nodded gloomily. "As Æsop," he said, "has been in Spain all these years hunting Lagardere—"
"Yes," Gonzague interrupted, "and never finding him."
Peyrolles bowed. "True, your highness, but at least up to now he has kept Lagardere on the Spanish side of the frontier, kept Lagardere in peril of his life. Æsop hates Lagardere, always has hated him. When the last of our men met with"—he paused for a moment as if to find a fitting phrase, and then continued—"the usual misfortune, I thought it useless to leave Æsop in Spain, and sent for him. He came to me to-day. May I present him to your highness?"
Gonzague nodded thoughtfully. Any ally was welcome in such a crisis. "Yes," he said.