The king spoke, decisively: "If the attack has been secret, the justification shall be public."
Gonzague addressed Lagardere: "Where is the woman who calls herself the daughter of Louis de Nevers?"
The king also questioned: "Why is she not with you?"
Lagardere answered, composedly: "Mademoiselle de Nevers will be here at midnight, and will herself present to your Royal Highness the papers that prove her birth."
"What papers?" asked the king.
And Lagardere answered: "The pages torn from the parish register by her mother, and confided to me in the moat of Caylus Castle."
The princess leaned forward. "What do you say?" she asked, eagerly, and the king echoed her question.
Lagardere replied: "The princess gave those papers to me when she placed her child in my arms, believing that I was her husband, Louis de Nevers."
Gonzague questioned, with a sneer: "Why should she think you were her husband?"
Lagardere looked him full in the face. "Because, thanks to you, I gave the signal agreed upon—her husband’s motto, ’I am here.’"