“Messieurs,” I said, “I swear by the blessed saints I am what I told you.  I am no spy, and no one sent me here.  Who you are, or what you do, I know no more than a babe unborn.  I belong to no party and am no man’s man.  As for why you choose to live in this empty house, it is not my concern and I care no whit about it.  Let me go, messieurs, and I will swear to keep silence about what I have seen.”

“I am for letting him go,” said Yeux-gris.

Gervais looked doubtful, the most encouraging attitude toward me he had yet assumed.  He answered: 

“If he had not said the name—­”

“Stuff!” interrupted Yeux-gris.  “It is a coincidence, no more.  If he were what you think, it is the very last name he would have said.”

This was Greek to me; I had mentioned no names but Maitre Jacques’s and my own.  And he was their friend.

“Messieurs,” I said, “if it is my name that does not please you, why, I can say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is an honest one and has ever been held so down where we live.”

“And that is at St. Quentin,” said Yeux-gris.

“Yes, monsieur.  My father, Anton Broux, is Master of the Forest to the Duke of St. Quentin.”

He started, and Gervais cried out: 

“Voila! who is the fool now?”

My nerves, which had grown tranquil since Yeux-gris came to my rescue, quivered anew.  The common man started at the very word St. Quentin, and the masters started when I named the duke.  Was it he whom they had spoken of as Monsieur?  Who and what were they?  There was more in this than I had thought at first.  It was no longer a mere question of my liberty.  I was all eyes and ears for whatever information I could gather.

Yeux-gris spoke to me, for the first time gravely: 

“This is not a time when folks take pleasure-trips to Paris.  What brought you?”

“I used to be Monsieur’s page down at St. Quentin,” I answered, deeming the straight truth best.  “When we learned that he was in Paris, my father sent me up to him.  I reached the city last night, and lay at the Amour de Dieu.  This morning I went to the duke’s hotel, but the guard would not let me in.  Then, when Monsieur drove out I tried to get speech with him, but he would have none of me.”

The bitterness I felt over my rebuff must have been in my voice and face, for Gervais spoke abruptly: 

“And do you hate him for that?”

“Nay,” said I, churlishly enough.  “It is his to do as he chooses.  But I hate the Comte de Mar for striking me a foul blow.”

“The Comte de Mar!” exclaimed Yeux-gris.

“His son.”

“He has no son.”

“But he has, monsieur.  The Comte de—­”

“He is dead,” said Yeux-gris.

“Why, we knew naught—­” I was beginning, when Gervais broke in: 

“You say the fellow’s honest, when he tells such tales as this!  He saw the Comte de Mar—!”