Marsac was that friend of Lesperon's to whose warm commendation of
the Gascon rebel I owed the courtesy and kindness that the Vicomte
de Lavedan had meted out to me since my coming.
Is it wonderful that I stood as if frozen, my wits refusing to work
and my countenance wearing, I doubt not, a very stricken look? Here
was one coming to Lavedan who knew Lesperon - one who would unmask me
and say that I was an impostor. What would happen then? A spy they
would of a certainty account me, and that they would make short work
of me I never doubted. But that was something that troubled me less
than the opinion Mademoiselle must form. How would she interpret
what I had said that day? In what light would she view me hereafter?
Such questions sped like swift arrows through my mind, and in their
train came a dull anger with myself that I had not told her
everything that afternoon. It was too late now. The confession
would come no longer of my own free will, as it might have done an
hour ago, but would be forced from me by the circumstances that
impended. Thus it would no longer have any virtue to recommend it
to her mercy.
"The news seems hardly welcome, Monsieur de Lesperon," said
Roxalanne in a voice that was inscrutable. Her tone stirred me, for
it betokened suspicion already. Something might yet chance to aid
me, and in the mean while I might spoil all did I yield to this
dread of the morrow. By an effort I mastered myself, and in tones
calm and level, that betrayed nothing of the tempest in my soul--
"It is not welcome, mademoiselle," I answered.
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