"I learned from his servant that he was bound in great haste for Montoire. Coming to Montoire, I inquired, and was informed that his only tie in this neighbourhood was his acquaintance with you. Therefore it must have been you he was coming to see, and his haste implied the urgency of his reasons, whatever they may have been. Thinking you might be depending upon his arrival, I resolved to tell you of his death."
"It is a little odd that you should put yourself out to do that."
"It might be, if I were not responsible for his failure to come to you."
"Oh, then it was you who killed him?"
"Yes; and thought it only the proper act of a gentleman to carry the news to the person who may have expected him."
"H'm. No doubt. But why did you not come directly and tell me?"
"I heard you made yourself entirely inaccessible to strangers. So when Monsieur de Pepicot spoke of asking you to lend us chessmen, I thought it might lead to some breaking down of your reserve,—as it did."
"But why did you wait a day before telling me?"
"I hoped that chance might enable me to see you alone. But you were so deeply engrossed in your chess. And I hesitated lest you might think yourself bound, as Monsieur de Merri's friend, to deliver me up for having violated the edict."
These were certainly sufficient reasons, though, as you know, I had not thought of telling him of Monsieur de Merri till after I had heard the Countess's story, and therefore they were not the true answer to his question. But I no longer found safe standing on the ground of truth, and so fell back upon the soil of invention, uncertain as it was. The Count looked as far into me as he could, and then called the Captain, who came without haste to the great fireplace where we were. Without any explanation to me, or other preface, the Count repeated my disclosure to his friend, all the time in the manner of one submitting a story to the hearer's judgment as to its truth.