That, Monsieur le Comte, was undeniably the action of a cheat.

Was it not ?" "Damnation!" he roared, and would have risen, but, my hand upon his arm, I restrained him and pressed him back into his chair.
"By a sequence of fortuitous circumstances," I pursued, "it became possible for me to circumvent the obstacle upon which you had based your calculations.

Those same circumstances led later to my being arrested in error and in place of another man.

You discovered how I had contravened the influence upon which you counted; you trembled to see how the unexpected had befriended me, and you began to fear for your wager.
"What did you do?
Seeing me arraigned before you in your quality as King's Commissioner, you pretended to no knowledge of me; you became blind to my being any but Lesperon the rebel, and you sentenced me to death in his place, so that being thus definitely removed I should be unable to carry out my undertaking, and my lands should consequently pass into your possession.

That, monsieur, was at once the act of a thief and a murderer.