"Isn't it a terrible thing that a priest should have a mistress? At all events, that's what I said to myself. My purpose was, therefore, to carry her away, and carry her so far that he would never see her again. I sent word to him of my purpose; but the devil of a man uses arguments one can't resist; he offered me a thousand pistoles." "Poor woman! to be thus bargained for!" "Nonsense! on the contrary, she should have been overjoyed, for that proved how dearly Monsieur de Gondy loved her. None but men of the Church are so devoted as all that to their mistresses. I fancy that it's because they are forbidden to have them." "You are rich, then?" "Rich?" "Of course, after all these acts of brigandage." "Don't speak of it; look you, Nanon, I was most unlucky. Mademoiselle de Chevreuse's maid, whom no one thought of ransoming, and who consequently remained with me, took the money from me." "I hope that you retained at least the good-will of those in whose interest you acted in putting this affront upon the coadjutor." "Ah! Nanon, that proves how little you know of princes. Monsieur d'Elbœuf was reconciled with the coadjutor. In the treaty they entered into I was sacrificed. I was forced therefore to enter the service of Monsieur de Mazarin, who is a contemptible creature; and as the pay was by no means commensurate with the work to be done, I accepted an offer that was made me to incite another _émeute_ in honor of Councillor Broussel, the object being to secure the election of the Chancellor Seguier. But my men, the bunglers! only half killed him. In that affray I was in greater danger than ever before threatened me. Monsieur de la Meilleraie fired a pistol at me almost point-blank. Luckily, I stooped in time; the bullet whistled over my head, and the illustrious marshal killed no one but an old woman." "What a tissue of horrors!" exclaimed Nanon. "Why no, dear sister; simply the necessities of civil war." "I can understand that a man capable of such things might have dared to do what you did yesterday." "What did I do, pray?" queried Cauvignac with the most innocent expression; "what did I dare?" "You dared to throw dust in the eyes of so eminent a man as Monsieur d'Épernon. But what I cannot understand, and would never have believed, is that a brother, fairly laden with favors at his sister's hands, could in cold blood form a plan to ruin that sister." "Ruin my sister?--I?" said Cauvignac. "Yes, you!" retorted Nanon. "I had no need to wait for the tale you have just told me, which proves that you are capable of anything, to recognize the handwriting of this letter. Tell me! do you deny that this unsigned letter was written by you?" And Nanon indignantly held before her brother's eyes the denunciatory letter the duke had handed her the night before. Cauvignac read it composedly.