The better that you may appreciate that which followed, let me here
impart to you the suspicions which were already sinking into my mind,
to be changed later into absolute convictions touching the course
the Count intended to pursue concerning me. The sudden arrival of
the King had thrown him into some measure of panic, and no longer
daring to carry out his plans concerning me, it was his object, I
made no doubt, to set me at liberty that very evening. Ere he did
so, however, and presuming upon my ignorance of His Majesty's
presence in Toulouse, Chatellerault would of a certainty have bound
me down by solemn promise - making that promise the price of my
liberty and my life - to breathe no word of my captivity and trial.
No doubt, his cunning brain would have advanced me plausible and
convincing reasons so to engage myself.
He had not calculated upon Castelroux, nor that the King should
already have heard of my detention. Now that Roxalanne came to
entreat him to do that which already he saw himself forced to do,
he turned his attention to the profit that he might derive from her
interestedness on my behalf. I could guess also something of the
jealous rage that must fill him at this signal proof of my success
with her, and already I anticipated, I think, the bargain that he
would drive.
"Tell me, then," he was repeating, "what is your interest in this
gentleman?"
There was a silence. I could imagine her gentle face clouded with
the trouble that sprang from devising an' answer to that question;
I could picture her innocent eyes cast down, her delicate cheeks
pinked by some measure of shame, as at last, in a low, stifled
voice, the four words broke from her "I love him, monsieur.
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