And yet that I, Gil de Berault, should tremble before any man! With that thought I spurred myself, as it were, to the task.

'No, your Eminence,' I said, with the energy of despair.

'I have not brought him, because I have set him free.' 'Because you have--WHAT ?' he exclaimed.

He leaned forward as he spoke, his hands on the arm of the chair; and his eyes growing each instant smaller, seemed to read my soul.
'Because I have let him go,' I repeated.
'And why ?' he said, in a voice like the rasping of a file.
'Because I took him unfairly,' I answered.
'Because, Monseigneur, I am a gentleman, and this task should have been given to one who was not.

I took him, if you must know,' I continued impatiently--the fence once crossed I was growing bolder--'by dogging a woman's steps and winning her confidence and betraying it.