"Now, if you should chance to overhear words betraying to you
certain people whom otherwise you would never suspect of being
rebels, your soldier's duty would, nevertheless, compel you to
apprehend them, would it not?"
"Why, true. I am afraid it would," he answered, with a grimace.
"But, if forewarned that by being present in a certain place you
should overhear such words, what course would you pursue?"
"Avoid it like a pestilence, monsieur," he answered promptly.
"Then, Monsieur le Capitaine, may I trespass upon your generosity
to beseech you to let me take these litigants to our room upstairs,
and to leave us alone there for a half-hour?"
Frankness was my best friend in dealing with Castelroux - frankness
and his distaste for the business they had charged him with. As
for Marsac and Lesperon, they were both eager enough to have the
mystery explained, and when Castelroux having consented - I invited
them to my chamber, they came readily enough.
Since Monsieur de Lesperon did not recognize me, there was no reason
why I should enlighten him touching my identity, and every reason
why I should not. As soon as they were seated, I went to the heart
of the matter at once and without preamble.
"A fortnight ago, gentlemen," said I, "I was driven by a pack of
dragoons across the Garonne. I was wounded in the shoulder and very
exhausted, and I knocked at the gates of Lavedan to crave shelter.
That shelter, gentlemen, was afforded me, and when I had announced
myself as Monsieur de Lesperon, it was all the more cordially
because one Monsieur de Marsac, who was a friend of the Vicomte de
Lavedan, and a partisan in the lost cause of Orleans, happened often
to have spoken of a certain Monsieur de Lesperon as his very dear
friend.
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