"Did you not write to me?" "I?" "Telling me to feign illness from ennui." "And how should I have written?--on what?--by whom?" Gaston reflected; and this time it was La Jonquiere who watched him. "Then," said the captain presently, "I think, on the contrary, that it is to you we owe the pleasure of meeting in the Bastille." "To me, monsieur?" "Yes, chevalier; you are too confiding. I give you that information in case you leave here; but more particularly in case you remain here." "Thank you." "Have you noticed if you were followed?" "No." "A conspirator should never look before, but always behind him." Gaston confessed that he had not taken this precaution. "And the duke," asked La Jonquiere, "is he arrested?" "I know not; I was going to ask you." "Peste! that is disagreeable. You took a young woman to him?" "You know that." "Ah! my dear fellow, everything becomes known. Did not she give the information? Ah! woman, woman!" "This was a brave girl, monsieur; I would answer for her discretion, courage, and devotion." "Yes, I understand. We love her--so she is honey and gold. What an idea of a conspiracy you must have to take a woman to the chief of the plot!" "But I told her nothing; and she could know no secrets of mine but such as she may have surprised." "She has a keen eye." "And if she knew my projects, I am convinced she would never have spoken." "Oh, monsieur, without counting her natural disposition to that exercise, can we not always make a woman speak? Some one might have said, without any preparation 'Your love for M. de Chanlay will lose your head'--I will wager that she will speak." "There is no danger--she loves me too much." "That is the very reason, pardieu! that she would chatter like a magpie, and that we are both caged up. However, let us drop this. What do you do here?" "Amuse myself." "Amuse yourself--how?" "With making verses, eating sweets, and making holes in the floor." "Holes in the king's boards?" said La Jonquiere. "Oh, oh! that is good to know. Does not M. de Launay scold?" "He does not know it; besides, I am not singular--everybody makes a hole in something; one his floor, the other his chimney, the next his wall. Do you not make holes in something?" La Jonquiere looked to see if Gaston were not laughing at him. "But now, monsieur," said La Jonquiere, "let us speak seriously. Are you condemned to death?" "I?" "Yes, you." "You say that coolly." "It is a habit in the Bastille. There are twenty here condemned to death, and not a bit the worse for it." "I have been interrogated." "Ah! you see." "But I do not believe I am condemned." "That will come." "My dear captain, do you know that, although you do not look so, you are marvelously merry?" "You think so?" "Yes." "Does it astonish you?" "I did not know you were so brave." "Then you would regret life?" "I confess it; I only want one thing to make me happy, and that is to live."