“Get out!” cried the captain, helping him along with his boot.  Maitre Menard fell rather than walked out of the door.

A gray hue came over Lucas’s face.  His first fright had given way to fury at perceiving himself the victim of a mistake, but now alarm was born in his eyes again.  Was it, after all, a mistake?  This obstinate disbelief in his assertion, this ordering away of all who could swear to his identity—­was it not rather a plot for his ruin?  He swallowed hard once or twice, fear gripping his throat harder than ever the dragoon’s fingers had gripped mine.  Certainly he was not the Comte de Mar; but then he was the man who had killed Pontou.

“If this is a plot against me, say so!” he cried.  “If you have orders to arrest me, do so.  But arrest me by the name of Paul de Lorraine, not of Etienne de Mar.”

“The name of Etienne de Mar will do,” the captain returned; “we have no fancy for aliases at the Bastille.”

“It is a plot!” Lucas cried.

“It is a warrant; that is all I know about it”

“But I am not Comte de Mar,” Lucas repeated.

His uneasy conscience had numbed his wits.  In his dread of a plot he had done little to dissipate an error.  But now he pulled himself together; error or intention, he would act as if he knew it must be error.

“My captain, you have made a mistake likely to cost you your shoulder-straps.  I tell you I am not Mar; the landlord, who knows him well, tells you I am not Mar.  Ask those who know M. de Mar; ask these inn people.  They will one and all tell you I am not he.  Ask that boy there; even he dares not say to my face that I am.”

His eyes met mine, and I could see that, even in the moment of challenging me, he repented.  He believed that I would give the lie.  But the dragoon who was bending over him, relieving him of his sword-belt, spared me the necessity.

“Captain, you need give yourself no uneasiness; this is the Comte right enough.  I live in the Quartier Marais, and I have seen this gentleman a score of times riding with M. de St. Quentin.”

Lucas, at this unexpected testimony, looked so taken aback that the captain burst out laughing.

“Yes, my dear monsieur, it is a little hard for M. de Mayenne’s nephew—­you are a nephew, are you not?—­to explain how he comes to ride with the Duc de St. Quentin.”

It was awkward to explain.  Lucas, knowing well that there was no future for him who betrayed the Generalissimo’s secrets, cried out angrily: 

“He lies!  I never rode out with M. de St. Quentin.”

“Oh, come now.  Really you waste a great deal of breath,” the captain said.  “I regret the cruel necessity of arresting you, M. de Mar; but there is nothing gained by blustering about it.  I usually know what I am about.”

“You do not know!  Nom de dieu, you do not know.  Felix Broux, speak up there.  If you have told him behind my back that I am Etienne de Mar, I defy you to say it to my face.”