“No, by Heaven!” cried M. Etienne, in a vibrating voice that brought me back to reality; “no, Vigo!  I am no murderer.  Things may look black against me but I am innocent.  You have one villain at your feet and one a prisoner, but I am not a third!  I am a St. Quentin; I do not plot against my father.  I was to aid Grammont to set on Lucas, who would not answer a challenge.  I have been tricked.  Gervais asked my forgiveness—­you heard him.  Their dupe, yes—­accomplice I was not.  Never have I lifted my hand against my father, nor would I, whatever came.  That I swear.  Never have I laid eyes on Lucas since I left Monsieur’s presence, till now when he came out of that door side by side with Grammont.  Whatever the plot, I knew naught of it.  I am a St. Quentin—­no parricide!”

The ringing voice ceased and M. le Comte stood silent, with haggard eyes on Vigo.  Had he been prisoner at the bar of judgment he could not have waited in greater anxiety.  For Vigo, the yeoman and servant, never minced words to any man nor swerved from the stark truth.

I burned to seize Vigo’s arm, to spur him on to speech.  Of course he believed M. Etienne; how dared he make his master wait for the assurance?  On his knees he should be, imploring M. le Comte’s pardon.

But no thought of humbling himself troubled Vigo.  Nor did he pronounce judgment, but merely said: 

“M. le Comte will go home with me now.  To-morrow he can tell his story to my master.”

“I will tell it before this hour is out!”

“No.  M. le Duc has left Paris.  But it matters not, M. Etienne.  Monsieur suspects nothing against you.  Felix kept your name from him.  And by the time I had screwed it out of Martin, Monsieur was gone.”

“Gone out of Paris?” M. Etienne echoed blankly.  To his eagerness it was as if M. le Duc were out of France.

“Aye.  He meant to go to-night—­Monsieur, Lucas, and I. But when Monsieur learned of this plot, he swore he’d go in open day.  ’If the League must kill me,’ says he, ’they can do it in daylight, with all Paris watching.’  That’s Monsieur!”

At this I understood how Vigo came to be in the Rue Coupejarrets.  Monsieur, in his distress and anxiety to be gone from that unhappy house, had forgotten the spy.  Left to his own devices, the equery, struck with suspicion at Lucas’s absence, laid instant hands on Martin the clerk, with whom Lucas, disliked in the household, had had some intimacy.  It had not occurred to Vigo that M. le Comte, if guilty, should be spared.  At once he had sounded boots and saddles.

“I will return with you, Vigo,” M. le Comte said.  “Does the meanest lackey in my father’s house call me parricide, I must meet the charge.  My father and I have differed but if we are no longer friends we are still noblemen.  I could never plot his murder, nor could he for one moment believe it of me.”

I, guilty wretch, quailed.  To take a flogging were easier than to confess to him the truth.  But I conceived I must.