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He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was saying, with a shiver: "I'm always afraid to hear Lagardere's voice cry out Nevers's motto." Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three words: "I am here!"
The fact that Nevers's daughter had been stolen was soon forgotten likewise by all save the man and the woman whom it most immediately concerned.
Anyway, Louis de Nevers was dead. It was amazing news enough for Paris, but there was more amazing news to follow. To begin with, Louis de Nevers's young wife was now formally recognized even by the old marquis as Louis de Nevers's young widow.
"There, before the flower of the nobility of France, Lagardere will denounce Nevers's assassin and produce Nevers's child." The king agreed again. "He shall have his wish. Where shall the invitations be sent?" Lagardere bowed low in acknowledgment of the promise.
The hunchback struck an attitude as he spoke, and strove to twist his evil countenance into a look of inspiration. Peyrolles was all eagerness now. "Let me see the girl," he pleaded. Æsop shook his head. "By-and-by. It is understood that if Gonzague accepts the girl as Nevers's child he takes me into his service in Paris. Eh?" Peyrolles nodded. "That is understood."
There lay the body of Madame, fully dressed, wedged into the narrow space and huddled up in a corner. The chambermaid screamed and the secret was out." "And Madame de Nevers's maid? What has become of her?" asked Kennedy eagerly. "She has disappeared," replied McBride. "From the moment when the bill was paid no one about the hotel has seen her."
There was, however, no jot of definite proof against the marquis. Nevers's dead body was found, indeed, in the neighborhood of the castle, with three sword wounds on it, one inflicted from the back and two from the front, but who inflicted or caused to be inflicted those wounds it was impossible to assert with knowledge, though it was easy enough to hazard a conjecture.
The sense of what he had sacrificed in making the journey seemed suddenly to gall him, for he glared ferociously at Peyrolles, and said, sharply: "Here have I been talking myself dry while you sit mumchance. Tell me some tale for a change. Why in the name of the ancient devil did Nevers's widow marry Gonzague?" Peyrolles laughed feebly. "Love, I suppose." Æsop waved the suggestion away.
Lagardere went on: "Lagardere knows much. He knows who killed Nevers. He knows where Nevers's child is. He can produce the child. He can denounce the murderer." "When?" asked the king, eagerly. "To-morrow," Lagardere answered. Then he hastened to add: "But he makes his conditions." Louis frowned as Lagardere mentioned the word "conditions," and asked: "What reward does he want?"
Gonzague paid to her and her sorrow the homage of a bow; then he resumed: "When madame the princess did me the honor to accept my name, she made public her secret but legitimate marriage with the late Duke de Nevers and the birth of a daughter of that union. This child disappeared on the night of Nevers's death. The registration of its birth is torn out of the chapel register and lost.
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