The Seigneur of Rozel found De la Foret at the house of M. Aubert. His face was flushed with hard riding, and perhaps the loving attitude of Michel and Angele deepened it, for at the garden gate the lovers were saying adieu.
"You have come for Monsieur de la Foret?" asked Angele anxiously. Her quick look at the Seigneur's face had told her there were things amiss.
"There's commands from the Queen. They're for the ears of De la Foret," said the Seigneur.
"I will hear them too," said Angele, her colour going, her bearing determined.
The Seigneur looked down at her with boyish appreciation, then said to De la Foret: "Two Queens make claim for you. The wolfish Catherine writes to England for her lost Camisard, with much fool's talk about 'dark figures,' and 'conspirators,' 'churls,' and foes of 'soft peace'; and England takes the bait and sends to Sir Hugh Pawlett yonder. And, in brief, Monsieur, the Governor is to have you under arrest and send you to England. God knows why two Queens make such a pother over a fellow with naught but a sword and a lass to love him--though, come to think, 'a man's a man if he have but a hose on his head,' as the proverb runs."
De la Foret smiled, then looked grave, as he caught sight of Angele's face. "'Tis arrest, then?" he asked.
"'Tis come willy nilly," answered the Seigneur. "And once they've forced you from my doors, I'm for England to speak my mind to the Queen. I can make interest for her presence--I hold court office," he added with puffing confidence.
Angele looked up at him with quick tears, yet with a smile on her lips.
"You are going to England for Michel's sake?" she said in a low voice.
"For Michel, or for you, or for mine honour, what matter, so that I go!" he answered, then added: "there must be haste to Rozel, friend, lest the Governor take Lempriere's guest like a potato-digger in the fields."
Putting spurs to his horse, he cantered heavily away, not forgetting to wave a pompous farewell to Angele. De la Foret was smiling as he turned to Angele. She looked wonderingly at him, for she had felt that she must comfort him, and she looked not for this sudden change in his manner.
"Is prison-going so blithe, then?" she asked, with a little uneasy laugh which was half a sob.
"It will bring things to a head," he answered. "After danger and busy days, to be merely safe, it is scarce the life for Michel de la Foret. I have my duty to the Comtesse; I have my love for you; but I seem of little use by contrast with my past. And yet, and yet," he added, half sadly, "how futile has been all our fighting, so far as human eye can see."