"
"This is very generous," I answered calmly. "But I have crimes
enough upon my head, and so, if the worst should befall me, I am
simply atoning in one person for the errors of two."
"But that is no concern of mine!" he cried.
"It is so much your concern that if you commit so egregious a blunder
as to denounce yourself, you will have ruined yourself, without
materially benefitting me."
He still objected, but in this strain I argued for some time, and
to such good purpose that in the end I made him realize that by
betraying himself he would not save me, but only join me on the
journey to the scaffold.
"Besides, gentlemen," I pursued, "my case is far from hopeless. I
have every confidence that, as matters stand, by putting forth my
hand at the right moment, by announcing my identity at the proper
season, I can, if I am so inclined, save my neck from the headsman."
"If you are so inclined?" they both cried, their looks charged with
inquiry.
"Let that be," I answered; "it does not at present concern us. What
I desire you to understand, Monsieur de Lesperon, is that if I go
to Toulouse alone, when the time comes to proclaim myself, and it is
found that I am not Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in Gascony, they
will assume that you are dead, and there will be no count against me.
"But if you come with me, and thereby afford proof that you are
alive, my impersonation of you may cause me trouble. They may opine
that I have been an abettor of treason, that I have attempted to
circumvent the ends of justice, and that I may have impersonated you
in order to render possible your escape.
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