Kill me if you like,
monsieur! I cannot avoid my thoughts. They are at your service as my hand
and sword are. I may be all wrong, but one cannot fathom women. You used
to speak of a lady of Catherine de Medici's--"
Ah, considered I, it is the thought of Mlle. d'Arency's deed that has
awakened these foolish suspicions in Blaise's mind! I had given him some
account of how that lady had, by a love tryst, drawn poor De Noyard to
his death. He was incapable of discriminating between women. He could not
see that Mlle. de Varion was of a kind of woman as unlike the court
intriguer as if the two belonged to different species of beings. Ought
one to expect delicacy of perception from a common soldier? His
suspiciousness arose partly from his devotion to me. So, much as I
adored mademoiselle and held her sacred and above the slightest breath of
accusation, I regretted the blow I had given him, and which he had
received so meekly.
"I see, Blaise, what is in your head," I said, "but there are matters of
which you cannot judge. No more of this talk, therefore. And I require of
you the greatest respect and devotion to mademoiselle."
"Very well, monsieur," he said, "Let me say but this: You remember my
forebodings the last time we rode through the province. Because we came
back alive, you thought there was nothing in them. Perhaps there was
nothing. Only I have been thinking that out of that last journey may yet
come our destruction.
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