My professions of a mistake of identity--if I wasted breath upon them would be treated with disdain and disregarded utterly.

God! What a position had I got myself into, and what a vein of comedy ran through it--grim, tragic comedy, if you will, yet comedy to all faith.

The very woman whom I had wagered to wed had betrayed me into the hands of the very man with whom I laid my wager.
But there was more in it than that.

As I had told Mironsac that night in Paris, when the thing had been initiated, it was a duel that was being fought betwixt Chatellerault and me--a duel for supremacy in the King's good graces.

We were rivals, and he desired my removal from the Court.
To this end had he lured me into a bargain that should result in my financial ruin, thereby compelling me to withdraw from the costly life of the Luxembourg, and leaving him supreme, the sole and uncontested recipient of our master's favour.