the swift heave of her bosom told me that my words were not without
effect. "Do you know nothing of the bargain that I made with
Chatellerault?" she asked in a voice that held, I thought, some
trace of misery.

"Chatellerault was a cheat!" I cried. "No man of honour in France
would have accounted himself under obligation to pay that wager. I
paid it, not because I thought the payment due, but that by its
payment I might offer you a culminating proof of my sincerity."

"Be that as it may," said she, "I passed him my word to - to marry
him, if he set you at liberty."

"The promise does not hold, for when you made it I was at liberty
already. Besides, Chatellerault is dead by now - or very near it."

"Dead?" she echoed, looking up.

"Yes, dead. We fought--" The ghost of a smile, of sudden, of
scornful understanding, passed like a ray of light across her face.
"Pardieu!" I cried, "you do me a wrong there. It was not by my
hands that he fell. It was not by me that the duel was instigated."

And with that I gave her the whole details of the affair, including
the information that Chatellerault had been no party to my release,
and that for his attempted judicial murder of me the King would have
dealt very hardly with him had he not saved the King the trouble by
throwing himself upon his sword:

There was a silence when I had done. Roxalanne sat on, and seemed