"'T was not last night, Monsieur."
"Not last night? Was it not last night that I went to Reaux?"
"It is nearly a month since that took place," she answered with a smile. "For nearly a month have you lain unconscious upon that bed, with the angel of Death at your pillow. You have fought and won a silent battle. Now sleep, Monsieur, and ask no more questions until next you awaken, when Michelot shall tell you all that took place."
She held a glass to my lips from which I drank gratefully, then, with the submissiveness of a babe, I obeyed her and slept.
As she had promised, it was Michelot who greeted me when next I opened my eyes, on the following day. There were tears in his eyes--eyes that had looked grim and unmoved upon the horrors of the battlefield.
From him I learned how, after they had flung me into the river, deeming me dead already, St. Auban and his men had made off. The swift stream swirled me along towards the spot where, in the boat, Michelot awaited my return all unconscious of what was taking place. He had heard the splash, and had suddenly stood up, on the point of going ashore, when my body rose within a few feet of him. He spoke of the agony of mind wherewith he had suddenly stretched forth and clutched me by my doublet, fearing that I was indeed dead. He had lifted me into the boat to find that my heart still beat and that the blood flowed from my wounds. These he had there and then bound up in the only rude fashion he was master of, and forthwith, thinking of Andrea and the Chevalier de Canaples, who were my friends, and of Mademoiselle, who was my debtor, also seeing that the château was the nearest place, he had rowed straight across to Canaples, and there I had lain during the four weeks that had elapsed, nursed by Mademoiselle, Andrea, and himself, and thus won back to life.
Ah, Dieu! How good it was to know that someone there was still who cared for worthless Gaston de Luynes a little--enough to watch beside him and withhold his soul from the grim claws of Death.
"What of M. de St. Auban?" I inquired presently.
"He has not been seen since that night. Probably he feared that did he come to Blois, the Chevalier would find means of punishing him for the attempted abduction of Mademoiselle."
"Ah, then Andrea is safe?"
As if in answer to my question, the lad entered at that moment, and upon seeing me sitting up, talking to Michelot, he uttered an exclamation of joy, and hurried forward to my bedside.