“Monseigneur, I did not mean to tell you. I thought we should both be murdered.”
“I thought that possible too,” replied the Marquis calmly. “Anything else?”
“Oh, Monseigneur—there was murder. I went back to the barn to fetch my hat. I had the little lantern—and I could not forbear looking in; and there was the foreigner lying dead from a sword-thrust.”
CHAPTER XI
M. DE RICHELIEU
Luc felt instantly that his servant spoke the truth, and saw instantly how he had been deceived. There was no back door to the barn; the young man, discovering he was being cheated, had run the poor foreigner through and left him there to die. The priest knew it, and hence his anxiety about the servant: he had dreaded the very thing that had occurred—namely, that the fellow should return to the barn and see the second corpse.
The Marquis’s first feeling was one of intense anger that a dissolute young noble had been able so to fool him; he had accepted the tale of the Italian’s escape like any child, and had sat down to bandy words with one who was fresh from a miserable, cowardly murder.
“Why did you not tell me before?” he asked.
“Monseigneur, I thought you might wish to return, and then we stood a good chance of being murdered.”
“Why?” demanded Luc sharply. “We were two to two, and one of them a priest.”
“But, Monseigneur, he was armed under his habit, and I saw evil intention in his face—and how could we tell how many more were in hiding? With respect, Monsieur le Marquis, they were dealing with the Devil.”