"At least," she said, with a look more tender and less saintly than she had yet permitted herself, "you will tell me what it is! What----"
"Raise that--the cloak!" he said. He pointed with his hand. "Remove it, I mean, and you will see what--what you will see!"
She obeyed and immediately recoiled with a low cry, the cloak in her hand. "Mon Dieu!" she whispered, with the colour gone from her cheeks. "Who--who is he? Who is he?" She shuddered.
The man her act had revealed rose from his hiding-place, his face whiter than hers, his haggard, shifty eyes betraying his terror.
"My lord!" he cried, "you will not betray me? My lord, you passed your word!"
"Pah, coward, be silent!" the Duke answered. He turned to the Abbess, his eyes dancing. "Do you know him?" he asked.
"He is M. de Vlaye's man," she said. "The prisoner!" She was pale and she frowned, her hands pressed to her breast.
"Whom they are so anxious to hang!" the Duke replied, chuckling. "And whom des Ageaux is so anxious to have under his hand! Ha! ha! Those were his words! Under his hand! When he touched the cloak I thought I should have died. And you, rascal, what did you think? You thought you were going to die, I'll be sworn!"
"My lord--my lord!" the man faltered the words, holding out imploring hands.
"Ay, I'll wager you did!" Joyeuse replied. "Wished you had let me confess you then, I'll be sworn! He'd not have it, good sister, when I offered it, because it was too like the end--the rope and the tree!"