"I shall do that in any case," the brother replied in a tone of inflexible determination; "if not at Calais, then at Paris! I certainly shall kill him!"
"Oh," cried Babette, "this retaliation is just what I dreaded! Not for him whom I no longer love, nay, whom I despise, but for you, Pierre, and you, Jean, both so fraternally kind and so devoted to me!"
"So, Babette," said Jean Peuquoy, with emotion, "in a contest between him and me, your prayers would be offered up for me and not for him?"
"Ah," Babette replied, "that one question, Jean, is the most cruel punishment for my fault that you could inflict upon me. How could I hesitate for one instant to-day between you, who are so kind and indulgent to me, and him, so treacherous and so vile?"
"Thanks!" cried Jean. "It does me good to have you say so to me, Babette, and be sure that God will reward you for it."
"For my own part," Pierre rejoined, "I am sure that God will punish the culprit. But let us think no more about him, my cousin," he said to Jean; "for we have much else to do now, and only three days in which to make our preparations. We must go about, notify our friends, get our arms together—"
In a low voice he said once more,—
"Jean, we must remember the 5th!"
A quarter of an hour later, while Babette, in the solitude of her own chamber, was offering her thanks to God, without a clear idea of her reasons for doing so, the armorer and weaver were going about the city, intent upon the business they had in hand.
They seemed to have forgotten Martin-Guerre, who at that moment, we may say in passing, was in utter ignorance of the warm reception which awaited him in the good city of Calais, where he had never before set foot.