Unfortunately, in listening to this remarkable mixture of truth and falsehood, with its suggested picture of Lucienne as all loyalty, purity, and coldness, Gilbert was violently conscious of a rival picture—a sensation rather—of the girl as she had stiffened in his arms at the news of the narrator’s arrest. That memory was more vivid at the moment than even the Princess’s letter. He saw the position quite clearly. Louis, with his back to the wall, was fighting desperately, not now for himself, but for Lucienne, and since the only way to clear her was to over-blacken himself, he had taken it unhesitatingly. Curious! he still had some of the instincts of a gentleman. “Thank you,” said the Marquis as he finished. “And I am to understand that Lucienne does not, never has reciprocated this dishonourable passion?—No, I will not ask you that; it makes no difference. . . . I see it all plainly now,” he continued, getting to his feet. “I am to blame for leaving her near you. I should have known better what you were. But you were my cousin and my friend; we were brought up together; the idea of such treachery never entered my head. The more fool I, no doubt! But you—trusted like a brother, you have acted like a lackey! If you have stopped short of the ultimate betrayal, that is all you have refrained from. There was a moment in Paris—you may as well know it; it was when you were in prison—when . . . something . . . caused me to entertain suspicions of you. But I put them away as unworthy; I was ashamed of myself for harbouring them; I was ashamed of having, for an instant, thought of leaving you to your fate. I need not have reproached myself. Ever since that night at Pézé when my eyes were opened I have been able to put it all together: your treachery, your ingratitude, your callousness— your double treachery . . . were you not trying to seduce Lucienne at the very time that you were making love to that adventuress? You are equally heartless and traitorous; you did not even keep your conquest secret—else why did you fight De Bercy the morning after I came to Paris? . . . God!” he exclaimed, his unnatural self-control slipping for an instant from him, “how I have wished that _I_ had you at the point of my sword!” Louis was on his feet, white with fury. “You can easily gratify that wish!” he retorted. “I ask nothing better! Here, now—no, curse it, we have no swords. . . .” “No,” said the Marquis coldly, “it is too late. Our lives are wanted for something else.” “Even mine?” asked Saint-Ermay with bitter derision. “Well, you can ask for it when the need is past. I shall not forget the unspeakable things you have said to me—safeguarded by the knowledge that we cannot cross swords over them. . . . If I have wronged you, Christ! you have had your revenge!” His face, perfectly colourless, amply bore out his last words. Neither that, nor the blanched rage which lit it, nor the taunt, moved Château-Foix a jot.