"He had the fever all day and talked at random. This evening he felt better and wanted to go home, so I brought him behind me on my brood mare, saving your presence." "Let us go and question him," said Guillaume, rising. "No," said the marquis, "we will let him sleep. He needs it as much as we do ourselves. And what could he disclose that we do not know too well now? And of what could we accuse him? He went there to administer the sacrament to Monsieur d'Alvimar; that was his duty. When he learned what they were plotting there against me, if he did not threaten to betray it, he at least refused to take part in it. And that is why the gypsies bound and gagged him." Guillaume observed that Monsieur Poulain was a dangerous rector for the parish of Briantes, and that he ought at the very least to be threatened with a charge of complicity in the affair of the _reitres_, as a means of keeping him quiet or driving him away. The marquis absolutely refused to harass a man who seemed to him sufficiently punished already by the brutal treatment he had endured and the risk he had run of perishing in oblivion and silence in a prison. "What!" said he, "by the grace of God, we got the better of forty _reitres_, well equipped and provided with a cannon; of a band of active and adroit thieves; of a terrible conflagration, and an execrable ambush; and we can think of such a thing as wreaking vengeance on a poor priest who can no longer injure us!" The marquis forgot that he was not yet entirely out of danger. Monsieur le Prince, who had set off in hot haste for the court, might not be well received there, and might suddenly return and vent his ill-humor on the nobles of his province. It was most essential therefore that the marquis should at all events not allow a dangerous advocate of D'Alvimar's cause to intervene between the prince and himself. This consideration was suggested to the marquis on the following day by Lucilio; whereupon Bois-Doré hastened to call upon Monsieur Poulain as if to inquire for his health. The rector, who was unable as yet to leave his easy-chair, he had suffered so intensely with cold, discomfort and fright, attempted to tell him that a fall from his horse had caused his injuries and had detained him twenty-four hours at the house of one of his confrères. But Bois-Doré went straight to the fact, and talked to him with a mild and generous firmness; nor did he fail to show him D'Alvimar's notes and call his attention to the manner in which his deceased friend referred to himself and the prince. Monsieur Poulain did not attempt to combat these revelations. His pride was much humbled by the atrocious perplexities in which he had suddenly become involved.