"No doubt, no doubt," the colour returning again to Jacquette's cheeks as she spoke. "And you would say that, if she is beautiful she can lead him, wind him round her fingers as a child can wind a silken thread. He is vain and she may play upon his vanity, although--although, Humphrey--even as she does so she still may love him. If all the world speaks true, many women have loved him ere now." "If she loves him she should not lure him to his destruction. Yet, if what I overheard last night has any truth in it, her own destruction might accompany his. La Truaumont warned her--and, as he spoke, his voice sounded sinister to me--that she might pay a heavy price for his love." "A woman would not heed that," Jacquette answered softly. "If she loves a man and would have him love her, the price, even though it be her life, counts nought." "Has he," Humphrey asked now, after gazing into her eyes as she spoke thus, "confided in the Duchess? Does she know all?" "She will _not_ know. She will _not_ hear. She is resolved to know nothing of De Beaurepaire's share in what is being plotted, I think. For if 'tis against the King, against his crown, that danger threatens, then--then--even though it were to bring death to him she would warn the King. His mother, the Princess, would have told the Duchess at Nancy, she endeavoured to tell her, to beseech her to intercede with De Beaurepaire, to beg him to forgo this mad scheme of which he had whispered the greater part to her, though not mentioning that he was the head and front of it; but madame would not listen to her. She will not know it since, knowing, she would feel impelled to divulge all to the King." "Then, somehow, I will save him. He has been ever good to me: once he offered me a commission in his guards; also 'twas he who pressed King Louis to make King Charles restore to me all that my father lost in his father's cause. I must save him." "Yet," Jacquette said, toying with the lace of his sleeve, "it does behove you also to save the King, since, if these conspirators are backed by the power and wealth of Spain, there is a chance they may succeed. He, Louis the King, has also been good to you." "'Tis true. 'Tis very true," Humphrey said reflectively; "he, too, when my father was dead and my mother and I borne down by bitter, grinding poverty, put in our way the wherewithal to live. He placed her in the suite of Madame Henriette, he made me a page at Vincennes. In very truth I owe him much."