voices, in tones that reflected his indignation. "No, no!
Shame!"

"No?" Blondel took up the word, his eyes sparkling, his adust complexion
heated and full of fire. "But it is--yes, they say! Yes, they say whom
you have to thank if we have lost our clue, they who met me going to him
but yesterday and threatened me! Threatened me!" he repeated, in a voice
of astonishment. "Me, who desired only, sought only, was going only to
do my duty! I used, I admit the fault," he allowed his voice to drop to
a tone more like his own, "words on that occasion that I now regret. But
is blood water? Does no man besides Councillor Baudichon love his
country? Is the suspicion, the open suspicion of such an one, no insult,
that he must cavil if he be repaid in insult? I have given my proofs. If
any man can be trusted to sound the enemy, it is I! But I have done! Had
Messer Baudichon not pressed me to issue the warrant, not driven me
beyond my patience, it had not been issued yesterday. It had been in the
office, and the man within the walls! Ay, and not only within the walls,
but fresh from a conference with the Sieur d'Albigny, primed with all we
need to know, and in doubt by which side he could most profit!"

"It was about that you saw him?" Petitot said slowly, his eyes fixed
like gimlets to the other's face.

"It was about that I saw him," Blondel answered. "And I think in a few
hours more I had won him. But in the street he had some secret word or
warning; for when I handed the warrant--against my better sense--to the
officers, they, who had never lost sight of him between gate and gate,
answered that he had crossed the bridge and left the town an hour
before. Mon Dieu!"--he struck his two hands together and snapped his
teeth--"when I think how foolish I was to be over-ridden, I could--I
could say more, Messer Baudichon"--with a saturnine look--"than I said
yesterday!"

"At any rate the bird is flown!" Baudichon replied, with sullen temper.
"That is certain! And it was you who were set to catch him!"

"But it was not I who scared him," Blondel rejoined.

"I don't know what you would have had of him!"

"Oh, I see that plainly enough," said Fabri. He was an honest man,
without prejudice, and long the peace-maker between the two parties.

"I thank you," Blondel replied dryly. "But, by your leave, I will make
it clear to Messer Baudichon also, who will doubtless like to know. I
would have had of him the time and place and circumsta