"Monsieur," said the pretended princess, hoping to awe Canolles by reasserting her dignity, "of all you say to me I understand but one thing, and that is that you insult me!" "Madame," said Canolles, "we do not fail in respect to God because we adore him. We do not insult angels because we kneel before them." And Canolles bent forward as if to fall on his knees. "Monsieur," said the countess, hastily, checking him with a gesture,--"monsieur, the Princesse de Condé cannot suffer--" "The Princesse de Condé, madame, is at this moment riding along the Bordeaux road on a good horse, accompanied by Monsieur Vialas her equerry, Monsieur Lenet her adviser, her gentlemen in waiting, her officers, her whole household, in short; and she has no concern in what is taking place between the Baron de Canolles and the Vicomte, or Vicomtesse, de Cambes." "What are you saying, monsieur? Are you mad?" "No, madame; I am simply telling you what I have myself seen and heard." "In that case, if you have seen and heard all that you say, your mission should be at an end." "You think so, madame? Must I then return to Paris, and confess to the queen that, rather than grieve the woman whom I love (I name no one, madame, so do not look so angrily at me), I have violated her orders, allowed her enemy to escape, and closed my eyes to what I saw,--that I have, in a word, betrayed, yes, betrayed the cause of my king?" The viscountess seemed to be touched, and gazed at the baron with almost tender compassion. "Have you not the best of all excuses," said she, "the impossibility of doing otherwise? Could you, alone, stop Madame la Princesse's imposing escort? Do your orders bid you to fight fifty gentlemen single-handed?" "I was not alone, madame," said Canolles, shaking his head. "I had, and still have, in the woods yonder, not five hundred yards away, two hundred soldiers, whom I can summon in a moment by blowing my whistle. It would have been a simple matter, therefore, for me to stop Madame la Princesse, who would have found resistance of no avail. But even if the force under my command had been weaker than her escort, instead of four times stronger, I could still have fought, and sold my life dearly. That would have been as easy to me," the young man continued, bending forward more and more, "as it would be sweet to me to touch that hand if I dared." The hand upon which the baron's glowing eyes were fixed, the soft, plump, white hand, had fallen outside the bed, and moved nervously at every word the baron spoke. The viscountess herself, blinded by the electric current of love, the effects of which she had felt in the little inn at Jaulnay, could not remember that she ought to withdraw the hand which had furnished Canolles with so happy a simile; she forgot her duty in the premises, and the young man, falling upon his knees, put his lips timidly to the hand, which was sharply withdrawn at the contact, as if a red-hot iron had burned it.