That is not so, sire, craving your Majesty’s pardon, M. de Rambouillet; replied with the utmost coolness. ‘Tut! Tut! The evidence is clear,’ the king said peevishly. ‘As to that, sire,’ my companion rejoined, ‘if it is of the murder of Father Antoine he is accused, I say boldly that there is none.’ ‘Then there you are mistaken!’ the king answered. ‘I heard it with my own ears this morning.’ ‘Will you deign, sire, to tell me its nature?’ M. de Rambouillet persisted. But on that Marshal Retz thought it necessary to intervene. ‘Need we turn his Majesty’s chamber into a court of justice?’ he said smoothly. Hitherto he had not spoken; trusting, perhaps, to the impression he had already made upon the king. M. de Rambouillet took no notice of him. ‘But Bruhl,’ said the king, ‘you see, Bruhl says--’ ‘Bruhl!’ my companion replied, with so much contempt that Henry started. ‘Surely your Majesty has not taken his word against this gentleman, of all people?’ Thus reminded, a second time, of the interests entrusted to me, and of the advantage which Bruhl would gain by my disappearance, the king looked first confused, and then angry. He vented his passion in one or two profane oaths, with the childish addition that we were all a set of traitors, and that he had no one whom he could trust. But my companion had touched the right chord at last; for when the king grew more composed, he waved aside Marshal Retz’s protestations, and sullenly bade Rambouillet say what he had to say. ‘The monk was killed, sire, about sunset,’ he answered. ‘Now my nephew, M. d’Agen, is without, and will tell your Majesty that he was with this gentleman at his lodgings from about an hour before sunset last evening until a full hour after. Consequently, M. de Marsac can hardly be the assassin, and M. le Marechal must look elsewhere if he wants vengeance.’ ‘Justice, sir, not vengeance.’ Marshal Retz said with a dark glance. His keen Italian face hid his trouble well, but a little pulse of passion beating in his olive cheek betrayed the secret to those who knew him. He had a harder part to play than his opponent; for while Rambouillet’s hands were clean, Retz knew himself a traitor, and liable at any moment to discovery and punishment. ‘Let M. d’Agen be called,’ Henry said curtly. ‘And if your Majesty pleases,’ Retz added, ‘M. de Bruhl also, If you really intend, sire, that is, to reopen a matter which I thought had been settled.’ The king nodded obstinately, his face furrowed with ill-temper. He kept his shifty eyes, which seldom met those of the person he addressed, on the floor; and this accentuated the awkward stooping carriage which was natural to him. There were seven or eight dogs of exceeding smallness in the room, and while we waited for the persons who had been summoned, he kicked, now one and now another of the baskets which held them, as if he found in this some vent for his ill-humour.