"And go again? The good Lord!" the Vicomte cried irritably. "Why?" "I do not know, sir." "Go on, then. Why do you break off? But--enough!" The Vicomte looked at the other listeners with an air of triumph. "Where is Vlaye in this? Because it was within a league of his castle, you put it on him, you baggage?" "No, sir, indeed!" Bonne cried anxiously. "But Fulbert the steward knows M. de Vlaye well, and recognised him. He wore a mask, it seems, but when his horse fell, the mask slipped, and Fulbert saw his face and knew him. Moreover----" "Well?" "One of the band rode a bald-faced black horse, which the steward saw in M. de Vlaye's troop at Angouleme two months back, and to which he says he could swear among ten thousand." The Vicomte swore as one among a large number. But at length, "And what is this to do with me?" he fumed. "What is this to me? Time was, before Coutras, when I might have been expected to--to keep the roads, and stay such things! But now--body of Satan, what is it to me?" No one spoke, and he looked about him angrily, resenting their silence. "What is it?" he snarled. "What are you keeping back?" "Nothing, sir," Bonne answered. "Then what would you?" "If," Bonne ventured desperately, "M. de Vlaye come to-morrow with my sister--with the Abbess, sir, as is not unlikely--and find the Countess here, will she be safe?" The Vicomte's mouth opened, and slowly consternation settled upon his features. "_Mon Dieu!_" he muttered. "I had not thought of that. But here--no, no, he would not dare! He would not dare!" "He went very far to-day, sir," Bonne objected, gaining courage from his face. "So far that he must go farther to ensure himself from the consequences." The Vicomte was silent. The Lieutenant coughed. "If his object," he said, "be to force a marriage with the Countess----" The Vicomte, with an oath, cut him short. "A marriage?" he said. "A marriage? When he and my daughter the Abbess are--but who said aught of the kind? Who said aught of a marriage?" The Lieutenant did not answer, and the Vicomte, after growling in his beard, turned to him. "Why," he demanded in a tone that, though ungracious, was no longer violent, "why do you say that that was his object?" "Because," the Lieutenant answered, "I happen to know that M. de Longueville, who is her guardian, has his hands full. His wife and children are prisoners with the Spaniards, and he is moving heaven and earth and the court to procure their release. He has no thought to spare for the Countess, his cousin; and were she once married, however violently, I doubt if he or any would venture to dispute her possessions with a Vlaye, whose resources her wealth would treble. Such knights-errant," he continued drily, "are not very common, M. le Vicomte. Set M. de Vlaye's strength at three hundred men-at-arms----" "Four!" the Vicomte muttered, despite himself.