"
I was silenced, but not convinced. Some minutes later, having thought it
over, I returned to the charge.
"But, Monsieur Maurice," I said, "it is not the first time he has been
here."
"Who? The King?"
"No--the brown man."
Monsieur Maurice frowned.
"Nay, nay," he said, impatiently, "prithee, no more of the brown man. 'Tis
a folly, and I dislike it."
"But he was here in the park the night you tried to run away," I said,
persistently. "He saved your life by knocking up the musket that was
pointed at your head!"
Pale as he always was, Monsieur Maurice turned paler still at these words
of mine. His very lips whitened.
"What is that you say?" he asked, stopping short and laying his hand upon
my shoulder.
And then I repeated, word for word, all that I had heard the soldiers
saying that night under the corridor window. When I had done, he took off
his hat and stood for a moment as if in prayer, silent and bare-headed.
"If it be so," he said presently, "if such fidelity can indeed survive the
grave--then not once, but thrice.... Who knows? Who can tell?"
He was speaking to himself. I heard the words, and I remembered them; but I
did not understand them till long after.
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