I need not have troubled myself, however, for he was fully equal to the occasion. His high colour and piercing black eyes met the gaze of friend and foe alike without flinching. Dressed well and elegantly, he wore his raven hair curled in the mode, and looked alike gay, handsome, and imperturbable. If there was a suspicion of coarseness about his bulkier figure, as he stood beside M. d’Agen, who was the courtier perfect and point devise, it went to the scale of sincerity, seeing that men naturally associate truth with strength. ‘I know no more than this, sire,’ he said easily; ‘that, happening to cross the Parvis at the moment of the murder, I heard Father Antoine scream. He uttered four words only, in the tone of a man in mortal peril. They were’--and here the speaker looked for an instant at me--‘Ha! Marsac! A moi!’ ‘Indeed!’ M. de Rambouillet said, after looking to the king for permission. ‘And that was all? You saw nothing?’ Bruhl shook his head. ‘It was too dark,’ he said. ‘And heard no more?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do I understand, then,’ the Marquis continued slowly, ‘that M. de Marsac is arrested because the priest--God rest his soul!--cried to him for help?’ ‘For help?’ M. de Retz exclaimed fiercely. ‘For help?’ said the king, surprised. And at that the most; ludicrous change fell upon the faces of all. The king looked puzzled, the Duke of Nevers smiled, the Duke of Mercoeur laughed aloud. Crillon cried boisterously, ‘Good hit!’ and the majority, who wished no better than to divine the winning party, grinned broadly, whether they would or no. To Marshal Retz, however, and Bruhl, that which to everyone else seemed an amusing retort had a totally different aspect; while the former turned yellow with chagrin and came near to choking, the latter looked as chapfallen and startled as if his guilt; had been that moment brought home to him. Assured by the tone of the monk’s voice--which must, indeed, have thundered in his ears--that my name was uttered in denunciation by one who thought me his assailant, he had chosen to tell the truth without reflecting that words, so plain to him, might; bear a different construction when repeated. ‘Certainly the words seem ambiguous,’ Henry muttered. ‘But it was Marsac killed him,’ Retz cried in a rage. ‘It is for some evidence of that we are waiting,’ my champion answered suavely. The Marshal looked helplessly at Nevers and Mercoeur, who commonly took part with him; but apparently those noblemen had not been primed for this occasion. They merely shook their heads and smiled. In the momentary silence which followed, while all looked curiously at Bruhl, who could not conceal his mortification, M. d’Agen stepped forward.