But on a sudden he looked at me
again. 'Will you answer a question, M. de Berault?' he said
winningly.
'Perhaps,' I replied.
'Then tell me--it is a tale I am sure worth the telling. What
was it that, in a very evil hour for me, sent you in search of
me?'
'My Lord Cardinal,' I answered
'I did not ask who,' he replied drily. 'I asked, what. You had
no grudge against me?'
'No.'
'No knowledge of me?'
'No.'
'Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens! man,' he
continued bluntly, and speaking with greater freedom than he had
before used, 'Nature never intended you for a tipstaff. What was
it then?'
I rose. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low.
'I will tell you--to-morrow,' I said. 'I shall have something to
say to you then, of which that will be part.'
He looked at me in great astonishment, and with a little
suspicion. But I called for a light, and by going at once to
bed, cut short his questions. In the morning we did not meet
until it was time to start.
Those who know the south road to Agen, and how the vineyards rise
in terraces north of the town, one level of red earth above
another, green in summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, may
remember a particular place where the road, two leagues from the
town, runs up a steep hill.
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