“Oh, your Excellency! I would die to serve so noble and generous a master! It is a servant's duty!”
“Few servants think so, nor do I! But you have been faithful to your charge respecting this poor lady within, have you not, dame?” Bigot looked as if his eyes searched her very vitals.
“O Lord! O Lord!” thought the dame, turning pale. “He has heard about the visit of that cursed Mère Malheur, and he has come to hang me up for it in the gallery!” She stammered out in reply, “Oh, yes! I have been faithful to my charge about the lady, your Excellency! I have not failed wilfully or negligently in any one point, I assure you! I have been at once careful and kind to her, as you bade me to be, your Excellency. Indeed, I could not be otherwise to a live angel in the house like her!”
“So I believe, dame!” said Bigot, in a tone of approval that quite lifted her heart. This spontaneous praise of Caroline touched him somewhat. “You have done well! Now can you keep another secret, dame?”
“A secret! and entrusted to me by your Excellency!” replied she, in a voice of wonder at such a question. “The marble statue in the grotto is not closer than I am, your Excellency. I was always too fond of a secret ever to part with it! When I was the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport I never told, even in confession, who they were who—”
“Tut! I will trust you, dame, better than I would have trusted the Charming Josephine! If all tales be true, you were a gay girl, dame, and a handsome one in those days, I have heard!” added the Intendant, with well-planned flattery.
A smile and a look of intelligence between the dame and Bigot followed this sally, while Cadet had much to do to keep in one of the hearty horse-laughs he used to indulge in, and which would have roused the whole Château.
The flattery of the Intendant quite captivated the dame. “I will go through fire and water to serve your Excellency, if you want me,” said she. “What shall I do to oblige your Excellency?”
“Well, dame, you must know then that the Sieur Cadet and I have come to remove that dear lady from the Château to another place, where it is needful for her to go for the present time; and if you are questioned about her, mind you are to say she never was here, and you know nothing of her!”
“I will not only say it,” replied the dame with promptness, “I will swear it until I am black in the face if you command me, your Excellency! Poor, dear lady! may I not ask where she is going?”