The lad sank to his knees. Fear and pain had robbed him of the petty cunning he possessed. He no longer knew what to tell nor what to withhold. And in a breath the truth was out. "Don't strike me!" he wailed, guarding his smarting face with his arm. "And I'll tell you all! I will indeed!"
The Syndic knew then that there was more to learn. "All?" he repeated, aghast.
"Ay, the truth. All the truth," Louis moaned. "I didn't see it. I did not go to it! I dared not! I swear I dared not.'"
"You did not see it?" the Syndic said slowly. "The phial? You did not see the phial?"
"No."
This time Messer Blondel did not strike. He leant heavily upon the table; his face, which a moment before had been swollen with impatience, turned a sickly white. "You—you didn't see it?" he muttered—his tone had sunk to a whisper. "You didn't see it? Then all you told me was a lie? There was nothing—no bottle in the box? But how, then, did you know anything of a bottle? Did he"—with a sharp spasm of pain—"send you here to tell me this?"
"No, no! She told me. She looked—for me in the box."
"Who?"
"Anne. Anne Royaume! I was afraid," the lad continued, speaking with a little more confidence, as he saw that the Syndic made no movement to strike him, "and she said that she would look for me. She could go to his room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he would have killed me! Indeed he would!" Louis repeated desperately, as he read the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face.
"You told her then?"