The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness and exhaustion into which he had fallen on sitting down. But midway in the other's harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyes grew a faint light of dawning hope. "But if it be not so?" he muttered feebly. "If this be not so, why----" "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" "Why did you look so startled a moment ago?" "Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least! And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same Messer Laurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to the young, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it," with a grin, "you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!" Blondel shook his head. "You do not deceive me," he muttered. For though he was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he had seen the other's face. "It is the _remedium_ she has taken! I feel it." "And given to her mother?" Blondel inclined his head. The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy," he said. "If it be the _remedium_ you will find her mother, who has not left her bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you have but to come with me, and you will find her----" He did not finish the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled the gap. Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. "How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken--as you say?" "If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?" "Yes." "Mad! Mad!" Basterga repeated with decision, "and beside herself. As you had been," he continued grimly, "had you by any chance taken the _aqua Medeae_." "That you kept in the steel box?" "Ay." "You are sure it was not the _remedium_?" Blondel leaned forward. If only he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great the difference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, and his hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as he strove to read the other's mind.