Once it occurred to me to take the jewels to the
Cardinal and buy my pardon with them; again, to use them
as a trap to capture Cocheforet; again, to--and then,
about five in the morning, as I sat up on my wretched
pallet, while the first light stole slowly in through
the cobwebbed, hay-stuffed lattice, there came to me the
real plan, the plan of plans, on which I acted.
It charmed me I smacked my lips over it, and hugged
myself, and felt my eyes dilate in the darkness, as I
conned it. It seemed cruel, it seemed mean; I cared
nothing. Mademoiselle had boasted of her victory over
me, of her woman's wits and her acuteness and of my
dullness. She had said that her grooms should flog me.
She had rated me as if I had been a dog. Very well; we
would see now whose brains were the better, whose was
the master mind, whose should be the whipping.
The one thing required by my plan was that I should get
speech with her; that done, I could trust myself and my
new-found weapon for the rest. But that was absolutely
necessary, and, seeing that there might be some
difficulty about it, I determined to descend as if my
mind were made up to go; then, on pretence of saddling
my horse, I would slip away on foot, and lie in wait
near the Chateau until I saw her come out.
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