"What is it, De Brissac?" De Beaurepaire said now, on observing that the others had all withdrawn out of earshot. "What? Have you come to tell me that you have at last found more _suspects_ for this charge? I hear--for, even in this hideous place, whispers filter through the very walls and reach us--that you and your master, De Louvois, seek to ensnare half the noblesse of France within the net you throw broadcast." "Nay," De Brissac said, understanding yet not resenting the bitterness of the other, since he recognised how justifiable such bitterness was, if--as many people thought and openly said--De Beaurepaire's name had been freely used by the Norman conspirators without his knowledge; "nay. Instead, on seeing you here I have come to inform you of that which may bring some calm to your spirit. That fellow over there--Boisfleury--can tell the whole story of how the young Englishman was first of all nearly done to death by the vagabond, La Preaux, while, to make the certainty of death more great, he was afterwards cast into the Rhine by him." "What! Why! La Truaumont----" but he paused. If he repeated to De Brissac what La Truaumont had told him, then, at once, he divulged that he and the latter had been in communication with each other. Added to which he knew also, perhaps by those very whispers which, a moment before, he had said even filtered through the walls of the Bastille, that La Truaumont had been in some strange way denounced to De Louvois and La Reynie as one of the principal leaders of the conspiracy, and he understood that it was madness to appear to be in possession of any information furnished by him. Nevertheless, he had mentioned La Truaumont's name ere he could collect himself and De Brissac had heard him do so. "La Truaumont!" the other exclaimed, while the strange look that was so apparent at times came into his face. "La Truaumont!" Then, as though desirous of helping De Beaurepaire out of a snare into which he had inadvertently fallen, he said, "Ah! yes. It is so. He was in your service. Did he not ride to Nancy for you?" "To Basle in the escort of the Duchesse de Castellucchio. Afterwards he was to go forward with her to Geneva on the road to Milan. Has he--have they?" he asked, continuing his attempt to throw dust in De Brissac's eyes, or, perhaps, with the wish to prevent it appearing that he and La Truaumont had met in Paris recently, "have they arrived in Italy?" "Madame La Duchesse may have done so," De Brissac replied, while the inscrutable look in his face became even more pronounced than before. "As for La Truaumont, he arrived at Rouen the night after you were arrested by me." "Is he arrested, too?" "I attempted to arrest him since it was to me that the order to do so was sent." "You attempted to do so! And failed!"