It was borne in upon me that some great personage was arriving in Toulouse, and my first thought was of the King. At the idea of such a possibility my brain whirled and I grew dizzy with hope. The next moment I recalled that but last night Roxalanne had told me that he was no nearer than Lyons, and so I put the thought from me, and the hope with it, for, travelling in that leisurely, indolent fashion that was characteristic of his every action, it would be a miracle if His Majesty should reach Toulouse before the week was out, and this but Sunday.
The populace passed on, then seemed to halt, and at last the shouts died down on the noontide air. I went back to my writing, and to wait until from my jailer, when next he should chance to appear, I might learn the meaning of that uproar.
An hour perhaps went by, and I had made some progress with my memoir, when my door was opened and the cheery voice of Castelroux greeted me from the threshold.
"Monsieur, I have brought a friend to see you."
I turned in my chair, and one glance at the gentle, comely face and the fair hair of the young man standing beside Castelroux was enough to bring me of a sudden to my feet.
"Mironsac!" I shouted, and sprang towards him with hands outstretched.
But though my joy was great and my surprise profound, greater still was the bewilderment that in Mironsac's face I saw depicted.
"Monsieur de Bardelys!" he exclaimed, and a hundred questions were contained in his astonished eyes.
"Po' Cap de Dieu!" growled his cousin, "I was well advised, it seems, to have brought you."
"But," Mironsac asked his cousin, as he took my hands in his own, "why did you not tell me, Amedee, that it was to Monsieur le Marquis de Bardelys that you were conducting me?"
"Would you have had me spoil so pleasant a surprise?" his cousin demanded.
"Armand," said I, "never was a man more welcome than are you. You are but come in time to save my life."
And then, in answer to his questions, I told him briefly of all that had befallen me since that night in Paris when the wager had been laid, and of how, through the cunning silence of Chatellerault, I was now upon the very threshold of the scaffold. His wrath burst forth at that, and what he said of the Count did me good to hear. At last I stemmed his invective.
"Let that be for the present, Mironsac," I laughed. "You are here, and you can thwart all Chatellerault's designs by witnessing to my identity before the Keeper of the Seals."