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Updated: June 23, 2025
Her mind skimmed lightly over all these matters, seeking somewhere some wrong that should stand out stark and glaring, upon which she might seize, and offer it to the Seneschal as an explanation of her hatred. But nowhere could she find the thing she sought. Her hatred had for foundation a material too impalpable to be fashioned into words. Tressan's voice aroused her from her thoughts.
At that some of the colour left her cheeks; her eyes grew startled: at last she began to realize that all was not as she had thought as she had been given to understand. Still, she sought to hector it, from very instinct. "Vertudieu!" she thundered at him. "What mean you?" Behind her Tressan's great plump knees were knocking one against the other.
The air of that vast apartment was disturbed by the sounds of Monsieur de Tressan's slumbers, the scratch and splutter of the secretary's pen, and the occasional hiss and crackle of the logs that burned in the great, cavern-like fireplace. Suddenly to these another sound was added.
Yet he made a stubborn fight, and whilst they fenced and stamped about that room, Marius came to watch them, staggering to his mother's side and leaning heavily upon Tressan's shoulder. The Marquise turned to him, her face livid to the lips. "That man must be the very fiend," Garnache heard her tell her son. "Run for help, Tressan, or, God knows, he may escape us yet.
The Marquise spoke to him kindly, and she stooped to pat the dog's glossy head. Then she bade Gaston set wine for them, and when it was fetched the three of them drank in brooding, gloomy silence. The draught invigorated Marius, it cheered Tressan's drooping spirits, and it quenched the Dowager's thirst.
The Seneschal turned to her again with his unanswered questions touching the end of that butchery above-stairs. She told him what Fortunio had said that Garnache was drowned as a consequence of his mad leap from the window. Into Tressan's mind there sprang the memory of the thing Garnache had promised should befall him in such a case.
In a sudden, blind choler, she swept round, plucked the dagger from Tressan's belt and flung herself upon the treacherous captain. He had betrayed her in some way; he had delivered up Condillac into whose power she had yet had no time to think. She caught him by the throat with a hand of such nervous strength as one would little have suspected from its white and delicate contour.
On the one hand his anxiety and affection for his master urged him to run at once to his assistance, whilst Tressan's removal of the troopers rendered it impossible for him to leave Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye unguarded though what he should do with her if Garnache came not back at all, he did not at this stage pause to consider.
"How many men shall you require?" he asked, thinking that the Parisian would demand at least the half of a company. "A half-dozen and a sergeant to command them." Tressan's uneasiness was dissipated, and he found himself despising Garnache more for his rashness in being content with so small a number than he respected him for the boldness and courage he had so lately displayed.
He thrust aside the papers on which he was at work, and drew towards him a fresh sheet on which to pen the letter which, he knew by experience, Tressan was about to indite to the Queen-mother. For these purposes Her Majesty was Tressan's only correspondent. Then the door opened, the portiere was swept aside, and Anselme announced "Monsieur de Garnache."
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