The Marquis de Lacheville had taken up a position near the door.
"He is Robert Tournay, an officer of the Republican army!" he cried out as he sheathed his sword. "While he is here in the disguise of a lackey in waiting to Mademoiselle de Rochefort, his intention is to play the spy and return with his information to France. For your own sake, General von Waldenmeer, you should place him where he can do you no such injury."
"What answer have you to make to this?" said the old general, addressing Tournay. "Are you a servant of Mademoiselle de Rochefort, or are you a spy of those Republican brigands? Speak! I condemn no man unheard."
Tournay looked round the room before replying.
"I am a colonel in the Republican army," he said quietly. "But I came here solely to bring mademoiselle to a place of safety; not to spy upon your army, which as a matter of fact I thought twenty miles further east."
General von Waldenmeer broke the silence that followed this avowal.
"You admit that you are an officer in the Republican army. You are within our lines under very peculiar circumstances. You may have taken advantage of Mademoiselle de Rochefort's confidence in you to play the spy. Until it is proven to the contrary, I must take the ground that both you and your companion are spies, and treat you accordingly. Colonel von Waldenmeer, you will send for a file of soldiers and place these two men under arrest."
"General von Waldenmeer!" said Edmé de Rochefort, turning toward the old baron with an appealing gesture, "you are about to commit an act of grave injustice. Colonel Tournay is guiltless of the charge of being a spy. The charge was brought against him out of malice and revenge by the man who has just slandered me so basely."
She did not look at the Marquis de Lacheville, but under the general gaze which was directed toward him as she spoke, he quailed and shrunk from the room, shivering as with ague.
"This gentleman," she went on, looking at Tournay gratefully, "has incurred great danger and endured much privation in order to bring me here in safety. He has been brave and devoted when others cravenly deserted me; and if he should be treated by you as a spy it would be as if I had decoyed him here only to destroy him."