"Perhaps I have let you see me too close, young gentleman," said Richelieu, with a good-humored smile. "And yet it is probable you served me when you did not intend it. There be some men, my young friend, and they very sensible men too, who will take no advice which comes from younger and less experienced persons; but yet things, as the Scripture says,--I speak with all reverence,--are often revealed to the poor and simple and are hidden from the wise and great. Now, I have a strong idea that you know more of Cardinal Richelieu, poor Bishop of Luçon, than that great diplomatist, Lord Montagu." Edward shook his head. "I cannot pretend to do that," he said; "but my lord thought he might venture to pass over a quarter of a league of French territory, when some time before you had suffered him to roam for weeks over the whole of France." "He had not got the papers then," said Richelieu, with a short laugh. "I did not want Montagu's skin: it was his letters and his papers that I arrested; and for that matter one quarter of a league is as good as a thousand miles. As for yourself, you have told me something new to-day. I heard of you at Aix, where your hot spirit had brought some damage on your skin. You had been wounded, I mean to say,--by your own brother I believe they told me. Very foolish, Master Edward Langdale, to fight with one's own brother!" "I did not fight with him, may it please your Eminence. My sword was never drawn." "Ha!" said the cardinal. "That is well. But then I heard of your making a hole in another man's skin. How was that?" "Why, I told the two men you sent after me, sir," replied Edward, frankly, "that I would shoot them if they kept dogging me; and I always hold to my word. They not only kept dogging me, but betrayed my lord into the hands of Monsieur de Bourbonne; and so I shot one of them. I am sorry to say I had not time to shoot the other, or probably your Eminence would not have heard so much of me as you have done." "Oh, yes," replied Richelieu, calmly: "the man got well, and was here some two months ago. Besides, I never depend upon one informant. But every one may be deceived; and no one told me that the good count had got you in limbo all this time. You say he denied you the means of communicating with me. Did you show him your safe-conduct?" "I did, sir," answered Edward; "and it had a very good effect, for it made him give me beef and wine instead of bread and water, with which he began my diet. I demanded also to be sent to your Eminence; but Monsieur de Bourbonne did not see fit to do so." "Enough," said Richelieu; "enough." And, taking a scrap of paper from the table, he wrote a few words thereon and laid it down again. "And now tell me all about your escape," he continued. "How did you get away from this giant of the castle?"