For if you can, indeed, establish the identity you claim, why should you languish in prison for some weeks ?" His voice was soft and oily.

The anger had all departed out of it, which I--like a fool--imagined to be due to my mention of the King.
"My friends, Monsieur le Garde des Sceaux, are all either in Paris or in His Majesty's train, and so not likely to be here before him.

There is my intendant, Rodenard, and there are my servants--some twenty of them--who may perhaps be still in Languedoc, and for whom I would entreat you to seek.

Them you might succeed in finding within a few days if they have not yet determined to return to Paris in the belief that I am dead." He stroked his chin meditatively, his eyes raised to the sunlit dome of glass overhead.
"Ah-h!" he gasped.

It was a long-drawn sigh of regret, of conclusion, or of weary impatience.