"Diane loves me no longer!" cried Gabriel, turning pale. "Alas! alas!" he continued, "so much the better perhaps! Meanwhile I wish to see her again, and to prove to her that I am neither indifferent to her nor guilty in her regard. This last interview, which I need to encourage me in my task, it is absolutely necessary that you should help me to obtain, Martin-Guerre." "Monseigneur knows," replied Arnauld, with humility, "that I am the devoted instrument of his will, and that I obey him in all things, as the hand obeys the head. I will use every effort, as I have done up to this very moment, to procure for Monseigneur the interview which he craves with Madame de Castro." Thereupon, laughing behind his cape, the crafty scamp followed Gabriel, as he returned in deep dejection to the town-hall. In the evening, when the false Martin-Guerre, after making a circuit of the fortifications, found himself alone in his room, he drew from his breast a paper which he perused with an appearance of the liveliest satisfaction. Arnauld du Thill's account with Monsieur le Connétable de Montmorency, from the day when he was forcibly separated from Monseigneur. (This account comprises public as well as private services.) For having (while held a prisoner after the battle of St. Laurent, and being taken before Philibert Emmanuel) advised that general to release the constable without ransom, upon the specious pretext that Monseigneur would do less harm to the Spaniards with his sword than good by his advice to the king. . . . fifty crowns. For having escaped by a clever trick from the camp where he was held, and having thus saved Monsieur le Connétable the expense of his ransom, which in his generosity he would not have hesitated to pay in order to recover so faithful and valuable a servant . . . one hundred crowns. For having skilfully guided by little-known paths the detachment which Vicomte d'Exmès was leading to the relief of St. Quentin and of Monsieur l'Amiral de Coligny, the well-loved nephew of Monsieur le Connétable . . . . . . . . . . . twenty livres. There was more than one other item in Master Arnauld's list quite as impertinently greedy as these. When he had read them all through, he took his pen, and added the following:-- For having, under the name of Martin-Guerre, entered the service of Vicomte d'Exmès, and while in such service denounced said viscount to the superior of the Benedictines as the lover of Madame de Castro, and thus insured the separation of these two young people, according to the best interests of Monsieur le Connétable . . . two hundred crowns.