“’Tis a stranger to me,” he replied, unmasking him of the green cloak. “I owe you my life, Choin. How came you so soon?”
“Archambault got us off two hours after you left,” said the Italian; “and in sooth you do owe me your life, for I shot that tall ruffian yonder just as he was about to put a bullet through you. Who is the villain?”
Péron did not reply; he had just unfastened the dead man’s mask and was looking, with mingled surprise and horror, on the dark, handsome face that he could not forget, that he had seen last in the Palais Cardinal, the face of M. de Nançay. And on the dead man was the cardinal’s ring.
“Mère de Dieu!” he said softly to himself, “my enemy—and her father!”
Choin had dismounted now and stood looking in the face of his victim, his own ruddy countenance growing paler as he gazed.
“Santa Maria purissima!” he exclaimed, relapsing into his mother tongue, “’tis that devil of a marquis whom monsignor let loose but now, and I am undone!”
Péron signed to him to speak lower and to keep his men away. When the two were alone with the body, he drew the fatal ring from the finger of Richelieu’s foe, then he turned to the anxious Italian.
“This is a bad business, Choin,” he said gravely, “and we must hide it until the story is told to the cardinal.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Choin, “the cardinal is the very devil when a man offends him; I would a thousand times rather face King Louis.”
Péron had been thinking hard; his perplexities increased at every turn, but he had only one sharp anxiety and that was for mademoiselle.