What? Now that I was here, now that my capture seemed certain, would she pretend that she had not acted for La Chatre against me? She did not know that I had met Pierre, and what he had confessed to me.
"Mock me as you will, mademoiselle!" said I.
"Mistrust me as you will, monsieur! I tell you, I would not have you undergo the smallest harm!"
"You well sustain the jest!"
"Before God," she answered, "I do not jest!"
There was in her voice a ring of earnestness that seemed impossible to be counterfeit. Puzzled, I looked at her, trying to read her countenance.
"Yet," I said, presently, "you were a spy upon me!"
"I was, God pity me! Scourge me with rough words as you will; I merit every blow!"
"And you came here to see La Chatre," I went on, "perhaps because you feared discovery, perhaps because you thought your work of betrayal was done" (for I thought that she may have known of the midnight march of the governor's troops), "perhaps to finish that work!"
"Now you wrong me at last!" she cried. "Thank God, I am not as bad as you can think me!"