I replied, my heart inexpressibly lightened by what he had said of mademoiselle, that I placed the fullest confidence in the justice of the King of Navarre. He repeated the name in a tone, I did not understand. ‘Yes, sir, the King of Navarre,’ I answered firmly. ‘Well, I daresay you have good reason to do so,’ he rejoined with a sneer. ‘Unless I am mistaken he knew a little more of this affair than he acknowledges.’ ‘Indeed? The King of Navarre?’ I said, staring stolidly at him. ‘Yes, indeed, indeed, the King of Navarre!’ he retorted, mimicking me, with a nearer approach to anger than I had yet witnessed in him. ‘But let him be a moment, sirrah!’ he continued, ‘and do you listen to me. Or first look at that. Seeing is believing.’ He drew out as he spoke a paper, or, to speak more correctly, a parchment, which he thrust with a kind of savage scorn into my hand. Repressing for the moment the surprise I felt, I took it to the window, and reading it with difficulty, found it to be a royal patent drawn, as far as I could judge, in due form, and appointing some person unknown--for the name was left blank--to the post of Lieutenant-Governor of the Armagnac, with a salary of twelve thousand livres a year! ‘Well, sir?’ he said impatiently. ‘Well?’ I answered mechanically. For my brain reeled; the exhibition of such a paper in such a way raised extraordinary thoughts in my mind. ‘Can you read it?’ he asked. ‘Certainly,’ I answered, telling myself that he would fain play a trick on me. ‘Very well,’ he replied, ‘then listen. I am going to condescend; to make you an offer, M. de Marsac. I will procure you your freedom, and fill up the blank, which you see there, with your name--upon one condition.’ I stared at him with all the astonishment it was natural for me to feel in the face, of such a proposition. ‘You will confer this office on me?’ I muttered incredulously. ‘The king having placed it at my disposal,’ he answered, ‘I will. But first let me remind you,’ he went on proudly, ‘that the affair has another side. On the one hand I offer you such employment, M. de Marsac, as should satisfy your highest ambition. On the other, I warn you that my power to avenge myself is no less to-day than it was yesterday; and that if I condescend to buy you, it is because that course commends itself to me for reasons, not because it is the only one open.’ I bowed. ‘The condition, M. le Vicomte?’ I said huskily, beginning to understand him. ‘That you give up all claim and suit to the hand of my kinswoman,’ he answered lightly. ‘That is all. It is a simple and easy condition.’