In sheltering you I am serving Gaston d'Orleans,
and, that I may continue so to do, I pray that suspicion may continue
to ignore me. If they were to learn of it at Toulouse or of how
with money and in other ways I have helped this rebellion - I make
no doubt that my head would be the forfeit I should be asked to pay."
I was aghast at the freedom of treasonable speech with which this
very debonnaire gentleman ventured to address an utter stranger.
"But tell me, Monsieur de Lesperon," resumed my host, "how is it
with you?"
I started in fresh astonishment.
"How - how do you know that I am Lesperon?" I asked.
"Ma foi!" he laughed, "do you imagine I had spoken so unreservedly
to a man of whom I knew nothing? Think better of me, monsieur, I
beseech you. I found these letters in your pocket last night, and
their superscription gave me your identity. Your name is well known
to me," he added. "My friend Monsieur de Marsac has often spoken
of you and of your devotion to the Cause, and it affords me no
little satisfaction to be of some service to one whom by repute
I have already learned to esteem."
I lay back on my pillows, and I groaned. Here was a predicament!
Mistaking me for that miserable rebel I had succoured at Mirepoix,
and whose letters I bore upon me that I might restore them to some
one whose name he had failed to give me at the last moment, the
Vicomte de Lavedan had poured the damning story of his treason into
my ears.
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