"I say I may have been mistaken, your Majesty, and that is what I mean," said De Froilette calmly. "Francois has seen these men who have come back, and I am convinced that Captain Ellerey was as astonished to see the token as any one."
"How could he be?"
"Are you certain of the man who delivered it to him?"
"As I am of myself. Do you still trust this Englishman?"
"If he wished to deceive us he could have done so in a much more effectual way," said De Froilette, "and served his own ends better. Men like Captain Ellerey do not join themselves to such a cause as ours for the love of it, but in their own interests. I have put down his somewhat off-hand treatment of me to his feeling of security in being your Majesty's trusted messenger."
"So Monsieur De Froilette, ever so suspicious, has lived to become weakly confiding."
"I have another reason to urge," the Frenchman went on. "I believe
Princess Maritza has been in Sturatzberg."
"Have you seen her?"
"No, but Francois says he did. He may have been mistaken, but the delivery of her token goes to confirm Francois. Now, your Majesty, one of Ellerey's companions may be a partisan of the Princess, and may have changed the token. The fact that I have led the Princess, while she has been in England, to believe that I have worked in her cause, might induce her to think that the golden cross would be acceptable to the brigands, that they would welcome the message it held."
"Had she trusted you in any degree, monsieur, she would have made her presence known to you."