Before the night came and ere that Commission had finished its labours much more had to be done. Based upon such matter as had been extracted from them in the numerous interrogatories to which they had all been subjected since their arrest, each and every one had been examined by the Court, while, with one exception--that of Van den Enden, who had not been believed and who was reserved for something still worse than examination, namely torture--what they had told or refused to tell was considered sufficient for the purposes of the Judges. One of the witnesses, however, had been spared the pain of testifying, since Boisfleury's evidence was considered enough--that one being Humphrey West.

"It is true," D'Aligre said to the others seated with him, "that he overheard the plot discussed at Basle. But all that he heard is nothing in comparison with what we now know to have taken place in Brussels, in Normandy, and elsewhere. He has endured enough. We may absolve him from further suffering."

"To which has to be added," remarked Laisné de la Marguerie, another of the Judges, a bitter, sarcastic man, "the fact that the young man stands high in the graces of his Majesty and is like to stand still higher ere long."

"While," said Quintin de Richebourg, ma?tre de requêtes, a kindly hearted lawyer, "he was once a friend of, and befriended by, De Beaurepaire. No need to force him to speak against one who, at least, never harmed him."

Therefore, Humphrey was released from what would have been a hateful task and left the Arsenal directly he was informed that such was the case, while the Commission at once proceeded to examine the prisoners, beginning with De Beaurepaire.

The answers to the questions put to him were, however, a total denial of any knowledge of the plot. He had never, he said, dreamed of any such conspiracy; he loved the King and always had loved him since they were boys and playmates together. La Truaumont was his factotum and he regretted his death, but while acknowledging that he had employed the man in that capacity, he had never heard him breathe a word of any such a scheme. Had such been the case he would have slain him at his feet. With Van den Enden he had had little correspondence and that only on the subject of raising private loans. No one had the slightest right or justification to use his name in connection with any plot against the King, and Van den Enden and La Truaumont had done so for their own purposes, if they had done so at all.

"That they did so," La Reynie said, "is undoubted, since La Truaumont met his death in endeavouring to slay those who went to arrest him on account of his connection with this sinful plot for which you were yourself arrested on the morning of the previous day." After which he continued gravely: "It is strange that, if your Highness was unaware of this plot, you should have been surrounded by so many persons of Norman birth and extraction who were all interested in it. La Truaumont was one of these persons."

"He was equally well known to me ten years ago and more when I first gave him employment. Was the plot hatched so long ago as that?"

"The so-called Chevalier la Preaux is another; the man who is sometimes known as Fleur de Mai."

"He was as much in the pay of La Truaumont as La Truaumont was in mine. And he is of the canaille. I could have no intercourse with him. Had I required a tool I should not have taken a dirty one."

"Dirty tools, or weapons, can be used as well as clean ones. And--in conspiracies--the tools are never clean. But there is still another Norman. The woman by your side, near you. She calls herself the Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville. She is known to be deeply involved in this vile plot. She was arrested in the lodge you had lent her and which was in your possession as Grand Veneur. She went to Basle at your bidding to meet Van den Enden on the subject of that plot. She is your accomplice. Yet you learnt nothing of it from her. Surely that is strange!"

"She is," De Beaurepaire said, while as he did so he turned towards where Emérance sat separated from him by only a little space, and looked her full in the face, "a woman whom I love. One whom, when we escape from this accursed net you are endeavouring to fling around us, I will love and cherish till my last hour."

"Mon amour!" Emérance breathed rather than murmured between her parted lips.

And the man heard that breath, as perhaps did some of the judges sitting near the prisoner.

"Yet," La Reynie said, "loving her thus, you tell us you know not of what she was vowed to, namely the destruction of the King, of his throne, of France. You did not know the secret of this woman whom you love, the woman who, you think, loves you!"

"Think!" again whispered Emérance, her eyes on La Reynie now. "Think!"

While De Beaurepaire, speaking at the same time, used the same word.

"Think!" he said. "Think that she loves me! La Reynie, do you think there is any man who does not know when a woman truly loves him? If so, then it is you who have never loved or been loved."

As he spoke, D'Aligre shot a glance at Laisné de la Marguerie. "The riposte is deadly," the latter scrawled on a paper in front of him, a paper which the President could see. For La Reynie's wife was a shrew who was reported to have married him for anything rather than love.

"You know who and what she is?" La Reynie continued savagely. "You know her past?"

"No, only her present. Her past is nothing to me. I had no share in it."

"You should have informed yourself of it ere you allowed yourself to love her. You could have learnt that she was, with La Truaumont, the heart and soul of this conspiracy. A woman ruined by extravagant living and willing to make money by any means."

"'Tis false," Emérance exclaimed, looking up at the Judges for the first time and also speaking aloud for the first time. "My husband left me with some small means. But--because after treating me cruelly for months, he was found dead in his bed, for which I was tried at Rouen for having poisoned him and was at once acquitted and absolved--not one sol or denier have I ever been able to obtain from his kinsmen. Extravagant living! I have never yet known what it was to have a handful of gold pistoles to spend, or fling into the river, if it pleased me so to do."

"Madame," La Reynie said quietly, "this is not your final interrogatory. Later I will deal with you."

After which he again addressed De Beaurepaire, saying: "Monsieur le Prince, the man, Van den Enden, states that you have often said in his presence, and that of others, when speaking of his Majesty the King: 'We shall have him yet. We shall hold him.'"

"He lies," De Beaurepaire said, shrugging his shoulders with superbly assumed disdain. "As for the others, who are they and where are they? Produce them."

"Also," La Reynie continued, ignoring this challenge, "he states that you threatened to kill him if he did not act entirely as you bade him."

"Pah!" exclaimed De Beaurepaire, with another contemptuous shru............