"My lord cardinal, my business with them is private. Those letters are suspicious or not, as they may be viewed: they are not criminal; and though, as you shall determine, they may perhaps justify my detention, yet I assure you once again I knew not their contents until this moment. You must be the judge of your own conduct. I know my own purposes, and can safely say my only object in seeking to see those two princes is one with which your Eminence has no concern." "I _am_ the judge of my own conduct, young gentleman," answered the minister, in a not ungentle voice. "But see you here. Sir Peter Apsley has been represented to me as a good, lubberly youth, whom his relations and guardians are fain to send to foreign lands to see if he can gather some grains of sense and learning amongst more quick-witted people. Now, here we have a young man well read, ready and quick, of a fine taste, and speaking many tongues. This is suspicious too,--unless indeed you have visited some shrine and the saint has worked a miracle." "My lord cardinal, it would befit me ill to bandy words with you," replied Edward: "I should but fare the worse. Your qualities are not unknown in England; and, having said all I can rightly say, I would not willingly try to match my wit against yours." "I know few who could do it better for your age," said the cardinal, perhaps remembering still with pleasure the youth's praise of his not super-excellent verses. "But now to another theme. Who is the girl that is travelling with you, first as a page, then in the habit of a peasant-girl? Your paramour, I trust, she is not." The cheek of Edward Langdale glowed like fire. "You wrong us both, even by the thought, lord cardinal," he said, although Richelieu had spoken the last words with a somewhat threatening brow. "You have heard me avow that I have been perhaps guilty of some indiscretion; and I wish to Heaven she had never come with me; but I could not dream of wronging an innocent girl who has trusted entirely to me, and should think my love for her but a poor and false excuse were I to do so even in thought. As to her being with me, your Eminence may surmise many motives; but, believe me, all were honest." "I am willing to suppose it," answered the cardinal, mildly. "You wish to marry: is it not so?" Edward bowed his head. "And you fear there may be difficulties raised by her family?" continued Richelieu, in a tone of inquiry. "Many," replied the youth. "Perhaps there is a difference in rank," suggested the cardinal. "It may be so," answered Edward; "but yet I am a gentleman, and all my friends have been so, as far as we can trace the house." "Well, we shall hear what she says herself," answered the minister, ringing a small silver bell. The exempt immediately appeared at the door, and the cardinal bade him call Mademoiselle de Mirepoix from the neighboring room.