He had
left me no time for thanks, if even I could have framed any. But he had
kissed me--he had promised me that Monsieur Maurice should go free, "if he
deserved it!" and who better than I knew how impossible it was that he
should not deserve it? It was all true. It was not a dream. I had the
King's royal word for it.
I had the King's royal word for it--and yet I could hardly believe it!
12
I have told my story up to this point from my own personal experience,
relating in their order, quite simply and faithfully, the things I myself
heard and saw. I can do this, however, no longer. Respecting those matters
that happened when I was not present, I can only repeat what was told me by
others; and as regards certain foregone events in the life of Monsieur
Maurice, I have but vague rumour; and still more vague conjecture upon
which to base my conclusions.
The King had said that Monsieur Maurice's case should be investigated
without the delay of an hour, and, so far as it could then and there be
done, it was investigated immediately on his return to the Chateau. He
first examined Baron von Bulow's original despatch, and all my father's
minutes of matters relating to the prisoner, including a statement written
immediately after the departure of a stranger calling himself the Count von
Rettel, and detailing from memory, very circumstantially and fully, the
substance of a certain conversation to which I had been accidentally a
witness, and which I have myself recorded elsewhere.
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