"That Sister Bénie is no other than Madame Diane de Castro, and that you are deeply in love with her?"
"You know that?" cried Gabriel, amazed beyond measure.
"Why should I not know it?" rejoined the admiral. "Is not Monsieur le Connétable my uncle! Is there anything at court that he doesn't know all about? Has not Madame de Poitiers the king's ear, and has not Monsieur de Montmorency Diane de Poitiers's heart? As very weighty interests of our family are apparently involved in all this, I was naturally informed of the whole business, so that I might be on my guard, and render every aid to forward the schemes of my noble relative. I had not been a day at my post in St. Quentin, to defend the place or to die here, when I received an express from my uncle. It was not, as I supposed at first, to inform me of the movements of the enemy and the constable's proposed operations. By no means! The messenger had risked a thousand dangers to notify me that Madame Diane de Castro, the king's daughter, was at the convent of the Benedictines at St. Quentin under an assumed name, and that I must keep a strict watch over her movements. Then again, yesterday a Flemish messenger, bribed by Monsieur de Montmorency in his captivity, inquired for me at the southern gate. I fancied that he had come from my uncle to tell me to take courage; that it was for me to re-establish the glory of the Montmorencys, sullied by the defeat of St. Laurent; and that the king would infallibly add other reinforcements to those brought hither by you, Gabriel; and that I must in any event die in the breach rather than deliver St. Quentin. But no, no! the purchased messenger came not to bring me any such stirring words to encourage and sustain me; and I was grievously mistaken. The man was only instructed to notify me that Vicomte d'Exmès, who had come in the night before upon the pretence of fighting and dying here, was in love with Madame de Castro, who is betrothed to my cousin, François de Montmorency, and that the meeting of the lovers might have a bad effect upon the vast plans being matured by my uncle; but that luckily I was governor of St. Quentin, and it was my duty to devote all my energies to the task of keeping Madame Diane and Gabriel d'Exmès apart; and, above all, to prevent their having any conversation together, and thus to contribute to the elevation and power of my house!"
All this was said with a bitterness and melancholy that were very perceptible; but Gabriel thought of nothing but the blow aimed at his hopes.
"And so, Monsieur," he said to the admiral, with bitter anger at his heart, "it was you who denounced me to the superior of the Benedictines, and who, faithful to your uncle's instructions, count, no doubt, upon taking from me, one by one, all the chances which I may still have of finding Diane and seeing her again."
"Hold your peace, young man!" cried the admiral, with an unspeakably proud expression. "But I forgive you," he added more gently; "for your passion blinds you, and you have not yet had time to know Gaspard de Coligny."
There was so much noble and dignified kindness in the tone in which these words were uttered that all Gabriel's suspicions vanished like mist, and he was deeply ashamed that he had entertained them for one moment.
"Pardon me!" he said, stretching out his hand to Gaspard. "How could I ever have thought that you would allow yourself to be led into such intrigues? A thousand pardons, Monsieur l'Amiral!"
"Oh, it's all right, Gabriel!" rejoined Coligny; "and I know that your impulses are youthful and pure. No, indeed, I do not mingle in such underhand practices; on the contrary, I despise them and those who have conceived them. In such performances I can see no glory, but only shame for my family; and far from wishing to profit by them, I blush at them. If these men, who build up their fortune by such means, scandalous or not; who, in their haste to gratify their ambition and their greed, never heed the sorrow and the desolation of those who are as good as they; who would even, to arrive a little sooner at their goal, pass over the dead body of their mother-land,—if these men are my kinsmen, it must be the punishment which God inflicts upon me for my pride, and with which He recalls me to humility; it is an encouragement to me to show myself harsh toward myself and just to my neighbors, as a means of redeeming the sins of my relatives."
"Yes," rejoined Gabriel, "I know that the honor and virtue of the days of the apostles dwell in your breast, Monsieur l'Amiral; and I beg your pardon once more for having for one moment spoken to you as to one of the fine gentlemen without faith or law whom I have learned too well to despise and detest."