La Rochefoucauld gazed earnestly at the viscountess, as if to search the lowest depths of her heart before the trace of her words had disappeared, and said, riding closer to her side: "Do you reproach me for it?" "Not at all; your heart is so well disposed in that place, Monsieur le Duc, that you have a right to expect compliments rather than reproaches." "Ah!" said the duke, with an involuntary sigh; "would to God I had made that journey with you!" "Why so?" "Because then I should not have gone to Saumur," he replied, in a tone which indicated that he had another response ready, which he did not dare, or did not choose, to make. "Richon must have told him everything," thought Claire. "However, I do not repine at my private ill-fortune, since it has resulted to the public good." "What do you mean, monsieur? I do not understand you." "I mean that if I had been with you, you would not have fallen in with the officer, who happened, so clear it is that Heaven is on our side, to be the same one sent by Mazarin to Chantilly." "Ah! Monsieur le Duc," said Claire, in a voice choked by the memory of the harrowing scene so recently enacted, "do not jest concerning that unfortunate officer!" "Why? Is his person sacred?" "Now, yes; for to noble hearts great misfortunes are no less sanctified than great good-fortune. That officer may be dead at this hour, monsieur, and he will have paid for his error, or his devotion, with his life." "Dead with love?" queried the duke. "Let us speak seriously, monsieur; you are well aware that if I give my heart away it will not be to people whom I meet on the high-road. I tell you that the unhappy man was arrested this very day by order of Monsieur de Mazarin." "Arrested!" exclaimed the duke. "How do you know that?--still by accident?" "_Mon Dieu_, yes! I was passing through Jaulnay--Do you know Jaulnay, monsieur?" "Perfectly; I received a sword-cut in the shoulder there. You were passing through Jaulnay. Why, wasn't that the village where, as the story goes--?" "Let us have done with the story, Monsieur le Duc," replied Claire, blushing. "I was passing through Jaulnay, as I tell you, when I saw a party of armed men halting with a prisoner in their midst; the prisoner was he." "He, do you say? Ah! madame, take care, you said _he!_" "The officer, I mean. _Mon Dieu!_ Monsieur le Duc, how deep you are! A truce to your subtleties, and if you have no pity for the poor fellow--" "Pity! I!" cried the duke. "In God's name, madame, have I time to have pity, especially for people I do not know?" Claire cast a sidelong glance at La Rochefoucauld's pale face, and his thin lips curled by a joyless smile, and she shuddered involuntarily.