"Wet hay," the other answered dreamily, "is slow to kindle, yet burns if the fire be big enough. At what hour does he state his will?"
"At noon."
"In the Council Chamber!"
"It is so given out."
"It is three hundred yards from the Place Ste.-Croix and he must go guarded," the Curé of St.-Benoist continued in the same dull fashion. "He cannot leave many in the house with the woman. If it were attacked in his absence----"
"He would return, and----" Father Pezelay shook his head, his cheek turned a shade paler. Clearly, he saw with his mind's eye more than he expressed.
"Hoc est corpus," the other muttered, his dreamy gaze on the table. "If he met us then, on his way to the house, and we had bell, book, and candle, would he stop?"
"He would not stop!" Father Pezelay rejoined.
"He would not?"
"I know the man!"