"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went," the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed me and overtook me on the bridge and threatened—that he would have me arrested if I were not silent."
"You refused to be silent, of course?"
But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew that Basterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, I said I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," he continued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms."
"But if you assented to his wish," Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly, "why did he depart after that fashion?"
"Something happened to him," Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemed to be in distress, or to be ill."
"I could see that," the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? What of him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be parted from you?"
"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways."
"I see. And that is the truth, is it?"
"I swear it is!"
The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, a facile tool, had always been of his, the stronger, party. If Blondel tampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of the house, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and when overtaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing, indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, was the fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. And for that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a sudden attack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching him from the farther bank.