"La Truaumont was not deceived nor did he lie. He saw the fight: he saw the other fall. Yet, now, I have seen him alive. This very day. Alive and making his way to the King." "And ere the Englishman was killed he had killed Boisfleury?" Emérance asked meditatively. "Nay. La Truaumont thought not so but that he only wounded him sorely." "They should have killed him ere they left Basle. They should have killed them both. They should have made sure of their silence for ever. Thus, too, when they were found they would have been thought to have slain each other; their lips would have been sealed--you would have been safe." "Emérance, think not of me alone. I am but one." "But one! You are the only one of whom I can think. What are a thousand lives, a thousand murders, to me so long as you are safe!" Before this overmastering passion of the woman for him, this love that, like the love of the tigress for its mate or its young, would have swept the lives of all in the world away to preserve the one thing precious to it, De Beaurepaire stood speechless. In truth it startled him--startled even him who had known so much of women's love yet had never known such love as this. "Nevertheless," Emérance went on, fearing that the violence of her passion, of her fears for her lover, might make him deem her what she was not, "I would have had no blood shed, and treacherously shed, too, had you been safe. Had I known before what I know now since La Truaumont and I have met again in Paris, had I guessed that this Englishman had overheard all, the attempt to do him cruelly to death should not have been made. At least, that ruffian, La Preaux, who masquerades under his buffoon's name of Fleur de Mai, should not have tried his treacherous _botte_ on him. I would have seen the eavesdropper, have sworn him to secrecy, and have saved him." "La Truaumont would have saved him if he could. He endeavoured to swear him to silence, to make him give a promise to breathe no word. Had the other consented all would be well. But----" "But?"--with an inward catching of her breath. "But he refused scornfully. He boasted how, that very night, he would be on his road to Louis to divulge all. Therefore it had to be. His blood was on his own head. If he had slain Fleur de Mai, as it appears he went near to doing, La Truaumont would have slain him." And De Beaurepaire muttered, "it had to be," while adding, "and still it was not done." Shrugging her shoulders the woman exclaimed, "Yes, and--alas!--still it was not done. He is alive and the King by now knows all. Only--will he believe upon this man's testimony alone? Will he act at once, without further proof or corroboration, ere he is sure?"