“Do you know me so little that you doubt me on that score? Have no fear, Andrea, I shall not speak. Besides, to-morrow, or the next day at latest, I leave Canaples.”
“You do not mean that you are returning to the Lys de France!”
“No. I am going farther than that. I am going to Paris.”
“To Paris?”
“To Paris, to deliver myself up to M. de Montrésor, who gave me leave to go to Reaux some seven weeks ago.”
“But it is madness, Gaston!” he ejaculated.
“All virtue is madness in a world so sinful; nevertheless I go. In a measure I am glad that things have fallen out with you as they have done, for when the news goes abroad that you have married Geneviève de Canaples and left the heiress free, your enemies will vanish, and you will have no further need of me. New enemies you will have perchance, but in your strife with them I could lend you no help, were I by.”
He sat in silence casting pebbles into the stream, and watching the ripples they made upon the face of the waters.
“Have you told Mademoiselle?” he asked at length.
“Not yet. I shall tell her to-day. You also, Andrea, must take her into your confidence touching your approaching marriage. That she will prove a good friend to you I am assured.”