Then there came the sounds of a man's sharp cry and a hurrying of feet in the passage, and the Maréchal started up as a lackey rushed into his room.
"Nom de Dieu, Gérome, what—"
"Monsieur—monsieur—madame—madame la Maréchale—"
"What is it? Speak, fool!"
"It was—madame's—shot!"
CHAPTER XV
Deborah
For three days it was the supreme topic in the Œil-de-Bœuf, and the Maréchal gave another day's interest by himself taking her unconsecrated body back to the château where she had spent sixteen of her nineteen little years, for burial. No one of the Court had caught so much as a glimpse of de Coigny before his departure; but certain valets, news scavengers of Versailles, spent much time with the Marshal's servants, and learned from them that their master's hair was gray beneath his wig, that he was starving himself, and that none save old Gérome could make him speak.
"I always said that he had the bad taste to be in love with her," observed de Gêvres, with a superior shrug.
"Will the abbé be called out, or did the affair lie in another direction?"