"To--er, to arrest me, may I ask?"
"Yes," I answered doggedly. "To arrest you. What of that?"
"Nothing," he replied slowly and with a steady look at me, a look I could not meet. "Except that, had I known this before, M. de Berault, I should have thought long before I surrendered to you."
The lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek burn. But I affected to see nothing, and turned to him again. "Now, Monsieur," I said sternly, "are you satisfied?"
"No!" he answered point blank. "I am not. You two gentlemen may have rehearsed this pretty scene a dozen times. The only word it seems to me, is, Quick March, back to Quarters."
I found myself driven to play my last card--much against my will. "Not so," I said; "I have my commission."
"Produce it!" he replied brusquely.
"Do you think that I carry it with me?" I said, in scorn. "Do you think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket for the first lackey to find? But you shall have it. Where is that knave of mine?"
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before his ready hand thrust a paper into my fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at it, and amid a pause of surprise gave it to the lieutenant. He looked for a moment confounded. He stared at it, with his jaw fallen. Then with a last instinct of suspicion he bade the sergeant hold up the lanthorn, and by its light proceeded to spell out the document.
"Umph!" he ejaculated, after a moment's silence; and he cast an ugly look at me. "I see." And he read it aloud.