Yet when the writing materials were brought me, I wrote not.

I sat instead with the feathered end of my quill between my teeth, and thus pondered the matter of the disposal of my Picardy estates.
Coldly I weighed the wording of the wager and the events that had transpired, and I came at length to the conclusion that Chatellerault could not be held to have the least claim upon my lands.

That he had cheated at the very outset, as I have earlier shown, was of less account than that he had been instrumental in violently hindering me.
I took at last the resolve to indite a full memoir of the transaction, and to request Castelroux to see that it was delivered to the King himself.

Thus not only would justice be done, but I should--though tardily--be even with the Count.

No doubt he relied upon his power to make a thorough search for such papers as I might leave, and to destroy everything that might afford indication of my true identity.