"An evil one,--your abduction. Shall I tell you who penned that note, and who awaits you? The Marquis César de St. Auban."
She shuddered as I pronounced the name, then, looking me straight between the eyes--"How come you to know these things?" she inquired.
"What does it signify, since I know them?"
"This, Monsieur, that unless I learn how, I can attach no credit to your preposterous story."
"Not credit it!" I cried. "Let me assure you that I have spoken the truth; let me swear it. Go to the coppice at the appointed time, and things will fall out as I have predicted."
"Again, Monsieur, how know you this?" she persisted, as women will.
"I may not tell you."
We stood close together, and her clear grey eyes met mine, her lip curling in disdain.
"You may not tell me? You need not. I can guess." And she tossed her shapely head and laughed. "Seek some likelier story, Monsieur. Had you not spoken of it, 't is likely I should have left the letter unheeded. But your disinterested warning has determined me to go to this rendezvous. Shall I tell you what I have guessed? That this conspiracy against my father, the details of which you would not have me learn, is some evil of your own devising. Ah! You change colour!" she cried, pointing to my face. Then with a laugh of disdain she left me before I had sufficiently recovered from my amazement to bid her stay.
"Ciel!" I cried, as I watched the tall, lissom figure vanish through the portals of the château. "Did ever God create so crass and obstinate a thing as woman?"
It occurred to me to tell Andrea, and bid him warn her. But then she would guess that I had prompted him. Naught remained but to lay the matter before the Chevalier de Canaples. Already I had informed him of my fracas with St. Auban, and of the duel that was to be fought that night, and he, in his turn, had given me the details of his stormy interview with the Marquis, which had culminated in St. Auban's dismissal from Canaples. I had not hitherto deemed it necessary to alarm him with the news imparted to me by Malpertuis, imagining that did I inform Mademoiselle that would suffice.
Now, however, as I have said, no other course was left me but to tell him of it. Accordingly, I went within and inquired of Guilbert, whom I met in the hall, where I might find the Chevalier. He answered me that M. de Canaples was not in the château. It was believed that he had gone with M. Louis, the intendant of the estates, to visit the vineyards at Montcroix.