"The Cardinal," I answered.
"I did not ask who," he replied drily. "I asked, what. You had no grudge against me?"
"No."
"No knowledge of me?"
"No."
"Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens, man," he continued bluntly, rising and speaking with greater freedom than he had before used, "nature never intended you for a tip staff! What was it, then?"
I rose too. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low. "I will tell you--tomorrow!" I said. "I shall have something to say to you then, of which that will be part."
He looked at me in great astonishment; with a little suspicion, too. But I put him off, and called for a light, and by going at once to bed, cut short his questions.
Those who know the great south road to Agen, and how the vineyards rise in terraces north of the town, one level of red earth above another, green in summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, will remember a particular place where the road two leagues from the town runs up a long hill. At the top of the hill four ways meet; and there, plain to be seen against the sky is a finger-post, indicating which way leads to Bordeaux, and which to Montauban, and which to Perigueux.
This hill had impressed me on my journey down; perhaps, because I had from it my first view of the Garonne valley, and there felt myself on the verge of the south country where my mission lay. It had taken root in my memory; I had come to look upon its bare, bleak brow, with the finger-post and the four roads, as the first outpost of Paris, as the first sign of return to the old life.