The curtain dropped again, and eclipsed the face of the woman that had betrayed me. With my mind full of wild surmisings as to what emotions might have awakened in her upon beholding me, I rode away in silence at Monsieur de Castelroux's side. Had she experienced any remorse? Any shame? Whether or not such feelings had been aroused at sight of me, it certainly would not be long ere she experienced them, for at the Hotel de la Couronne were those who would enlighten her.

The contemplation of the remorseful grief that might anon beset her when she came to ponder the truth of matters, and, with that truth, those things that at Lavedan I had uttered, filled me presently with regret and pity. I grew impatient to reach Toulouse and tell the judges of the mistake that there had been. My name could not be unknown to them, and the very mention of it, I thought, should suffice to give them pause and lead them to make inquiries before sending me to the scaffold. Yet I was not without uneasiness, for the summariness with which Castelroux had informed me they were in the habit of dealing with those accused of high treason occasioned me some apprehensive pangs.

This apprehension led me to converse with my captor touching those trials, seeking to gather from him who were the judges. I learnt then that besides the ordinary Tribunal, a Commissioner had been dispatched by His Majesty, and was hourly expected to arrive at Toulouse. It would be his mission to supervise and direct the inquiries that were taking place. It was said, he added, that the King himself was on his way thither, to be present at the trial of Monsieur le Duc de Montmorency. But he was travelling by easy stages, and was not yet expected for some days. My heart, which had leapt at the news, as suddenly sank again with the consideration that I should probably be disposed of before the King's arrival. It would behoove me, therefore, to look elsewhere for help and for some one to swear to my identity.

"Do you know the name of this King's Commissioner?" I asked.

"It is a certain Comte de Chatellerault, a gentleman man said to stand very high in His Majesty's favour."

"Chatellerault!" I cried in wondering joy.

"You know him?"

"Most excellently!" I laughed. "We are very intimately acquainted."

"Why, then, monsieur, I augur you this gentleman's friendship, and that it may pilot you through your trouble. Although—" Being mercifully minded, he stopped short.

But I laughed easily. "Indeed, my dear Captain, I think it will," said I; "although friendship in this world is a thing of which the unfortunate know little."

But I rejoiced too soon, as you shall hear.

We rode diligently on, our way lying along the fertile banks of the Garonne, now yellow with the rustling corn. Towards evening we made our last halt at Fenouillet, whence a couple of hours' riding should bring us to Toulouse.

At the post-house we overtook a carriage that seemingly had halted for relays, but upon which I scarce bestowed a glance as I alighted.

Whilst Castelroux went to arrange for fresh horses, I strode into the common room, and there for some moments I stood discussing the viands with our host. When at last I had resolved that a cold pasty and a bottle of Armagnac would satisfy our wants, I looked about me to take survey of those in the room. One group in a remote corner suddenly riveted my attention to such a degree that I remained deaf to the voice of Castelroux, who had just entered, and who stood now beside me. In the centre of this group was the Comte de Chatellerault himself, a thick-set, sombre figure, dressed with that funereal magnificence he affected.

But it was not the sight of him that filled me with amazement. For that, Castelroux's information had prepared me, and I well understood in what capacity he was there. My surprise sprang rather from the fact that amongst the half-dozen gentlemen about him—and evidently in attendance—I beheld the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. Now, knowing as I did, the Chevalier's treasonable leanings, there was ample cause for my astonishment at finding him in such company. Apparently, too, he was on very intimate terms with the Count, for in raising my glance I had caught him in the act of leaning over to whisper familiarly in Chatellerault's ear.

Their eyes—indeed, for that matter the eyes of the entire company—were turned in my direction.

Perhaps it was not a surprising thing that Chatellerault should gaze upon me in that curious fashion, for was it not probable that he had heard that I was dead? Besides, the fact that I was without a sword, and that at my side stood a King's officer, afforded evidence enough of my condition, and well might Chatellerault stare at beholding me so manifestly a prisoner.

Even as I watched him, he appeared to start at something that Saint-Eustache was saying, and a curious change spread over his face. Its whilom expression had been rather one of dismay; for, having believed me dead, he no doubt accounted his wager won, whereas seeing me alive had destroyed that pleasant conviction. But now it took on a look of relief and of something that suggested malicious cunning.

"That," said Castelroux in my ear, "is the King's commissioner."

Did I not know it? I never waited to answer him, but, striding across the room, I held out my hand over the table—to Chatellerault.

"My dear Comte," I cried, "you are most choicely met."

I would have added more, but there was something in his attitude that silenced me. He had turned half from me, and stood now, hand on hip, his great head thrown back and tilted towards his shoulder, his expression one of freezing and disdainful wonder.

Now, if his attitude filled me with astonishment and apprehension, consider how these feelings were heightened by his words.

"Monsieur de Lesperon, I can but express amazement at your effrontery. If we have been acquainted in the past, do you think that is a sufficient reason for me to take your hand now that you have placed yourself in a position which renders it impossible for His Majesty's loyal servants to know you?"

I fell back a pace, my mind scarce grasping yet the depths of this inexplicable attitude.

"This to me, Chatellerault?" I gasped.

"To you?" he blazed, stirred to a sudden passion. "What else did you expect, Monsieur de Lesperon?"

I had it in me to give him the lie, to denounce him then for a low, swindling trickster. I understood all at once the meaning of this wondrous make-believe. From Saint-Eustache he had gathered the mistake there was, and for his wager's sake he would let the error prevail, and hurry me to the scaffold. What else might I have expected from the man that had lured me into such a wager—a wager which the knowledge he possessed had made him certain of winning? Would he who had cheated at the dealing of the cards neglect an opportunity to cheat again during the progress of the game?

As I have said, I had it in my mind to cry out that he lied—that I was not Lesperon; that he knew I was Bardelys. But the futility of such an outcry came to me simultaneously with the thought of it. And, I fear me, I stood before him and his satellites—the mocking Saint-Eustache amongst them—a very foolish figure.

"There is no more to be said," I murmured at last.

"But there is!" he retorted. "There is much more to be said. You shall render yet an account of your treason, and I am afraid, my poor rebel, that your comely head will part company with your shapely body. You and I will meet at Toulouse. What more is to be said will be said in the Tribunal there."

A chill encompassed me. I was doomed, it seemed. This man, ruling the province pending the King's arrival, would see to it that none came forward to recognize me. He would expedite the comedy of my trial, and close it with the tragedy of my execution. My professions of a mistake of identity—if I wasted breath upon them would be treated with disdain and disregarded utterly. God! What a position had I got myself into, and what a vein of comedy ran through it—grim, tragic comedy, if you will, yet comedy to all faith. The very woman whom I had wagered to wed had betrayed me into the hands of the very man with whom I laid my wager.

But there was more in it than that. As I had told Mironsac that night in Paris, when the thing had been initiated, it was a duel that was being fought betwixt Chatellerault and me—a duel for supremacy in the King's good graces. We were rivals, and he desired my removal from the Court. To this end had he lured me into a bargain that should result in my financial ruin, thereby compelling me to withdraw from the costly life of the Luxembourg, and leaving him supreme, the sole and uncontested recipient of our master's favour. Now into his hand Fate had thrust a stouter weapon and a deadlier: a weapon which not only should make him master of the wealth that I had pledged, but one whereby he might remove me for all time, a thousandfold more effectively than the mere encompassing of my ruin would have done.

I was doomed. I realized it fully and very bitterly.

I was to go out of the ways of men unnoticed and unmourned; as a rebel, under the obscure name of another and bearing another's sins upon my shoulders, I was to pass almost unheeded to the gallows. Bardelys the Magnificent—the Marquis Marcel Saint-Pol de Bardelys, whose splendour had been a byword in France—was to go out like a guttering candle.

The thought filled me with the awful frenzy that so often goes with impotency, such a frenzy as the damned in hell may know. I forgot in that hour my precept that under no conditions should a gentleman give way to anger. In a blind access of fury I flung myself across the table and caught that villainous cheat by the throat, before any there could put out a hand to stop me.