But why
do I grow chilly telling you all this, when you do not intend to believe
me? Shall we not begin, monsieur?"
"Doubtless you are vain of your skill at fabrication, monsieur," I said,
wishing to deprive him of the satisfaction of thinking me deceived by
his story, "but you have no reason to be. That a woman should be sent to
betray an outlaw, and then a man sent to keep her in view and finally
hold her,--it is complicated, to say the least. Why should you not have
been sent to take me?" I thought that I had touched him here.
"That is what I asked Montignac," he replied. "But he told me that she
had already been commissioned to hunt you down, before he had made up his
mind to possess her by force. Moreover, it would not do to disturb the
governor's plan, on which the governor was mightily set, though Montignac
himself had suggested it. 'And,' said Montignac, 'you have not a woman's
wit to find his hiding-place, or a woman's means of luring him from his
men.' And yet, you will remember that when I thought you were a lackey,
and you offered to deliver La Tournoire to me, I grasped at the chance,
for I knew that, however set the governor might be on having the lady
take you, he would be glad enough to have you taken by any one, and if I
took you and got the reward I could afford to bear Montignac's
displeasure. I think Montignac's desire to have the lady take you was due
to his having suggested the plan.
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