“Nay,” I replied, “was I not lost in Paris? Did I not flee from the Place Royale, with the provost-marshal at my heels? Tush, monsieur, I am inured to perils; fear not for me. But now, I would give much for a single clew of her whereabouts; whether she went of her own will or not, and who she went with?”
Deeply flushed with embarrassment, Maître le Bastien hesitated, and then ventured to speak his mind.
“Pardon me, monsieur,” he said; “did you not marry her against her will, and almost—well, yes, M. le Marquis—almost, we might say, by force?”
I assented gloomily, my eyes on the bushes opposite, that swayed, though there was no wind.
“Then—may she not have fled—of her free will—monsieur?” suggested the goldsmith, avoiding my eye.
“’Tis not impossible,” I replied, “yet I think it improbable. She had less to fear from me than from others, and I thought her at the last inclined to trust me.”
“‘Souvent femme varie,’” quoted Maître le Bastien softly.
I did not reply; instead, I went across the garden and, diving my arm into the bushes, drew forth—by the nape of the neck—that rogue, Michaud.
At the sight of him the master goldsmith’s face flushed with mortification; he felt that I had borne much from his apprentice; and he was more severe now than I, who knew, by the knave’s looks and his chattering teeth, that he had hidden there in an agony of terror and from no sinister motive.
“What are you doing here, you rogue?” demanded his master harshly; “have you not done harm enough already, without playing also the part of eavesdropper?”