nswered.

'Then you must be mad!' he retorted, appealing to those behind him.
'Stark, staring mad to show your face here! 'VENTRE SAINT GRIS! Are we
to have all the ravishers and plunderers in the country come to us?'

'I am neither the one nor the other!' I answered, looking with
indignation from him to the gaping train behind him.

'That you will have to settle with M. de Turenne!' he retorted, frowning
down at me with his whole face turned gloomy and fierce. 'I know you
well, sir, now. Complaint has been made that you abducted a lady from
his Castle of Chize some time back.'

'The lady, sire, is now in charge of the Princess of Navarre.'

'She is?' he exclaimed, quite taken aback.

'And if she has aught of complaint against me,' I continued with pride,'
I will submit to whatever punishment you order or M. de Turenne demands.
But if she has no complaint to make, and vows that she accompanied me
of her own free-will and accord, and has suffered neither wrong nor
displeasure at my hands, then, sire, I claim that this is a private
matter between myself and M. de Turenne.'

'Even so I think you will have your hands full,' he answered grimly.
At the same time he stopped by a gesture those who would have cried out
upon me, and looked at me himself with an altered countenance. 'Do I
understand that you assert that the lady went of her own accord?' he
asked.

'She went and has returned, sire,' I answered.

'Strange!' he ejaculated. 'Have you married her?'

'No, sire,' I answered. 'I desire leave to do so.'

'Mon dieu! she is M. de Turenne's ward,' he rejoined, almost dumbfounded
by my audacity.

'I do not despair of obtaining his assent, sire,' I said patiently.

'SAINT GRIS! the man is mad!' he cried, wheeling his horse and facing
his train with a gesture of the utmost wonder. 'It is the strangest
story I ever heard.'

'But somewhat more to the gentleman's credit than the lady's!' one said
with a smirk and a smile.

'A lie!' I cried, springing forward on the instant with a boldness which
astonished myself. 'She is as pure as your Highness's sister! I swear
it. That man lies in his teeth, and I will maintain it.'

'Sir!' the King of Navarre cried, turning on me with the utmost
sternness, 'you forget yourself in my presence! Silence, and beware
another time how you let your tongue run on those above you. You have
enough trouble, let me tell you, on your hands already.'

'Yet the man lies!' I answered dogge