A leader of soldiers has a right to know something at least of the enterprise upon which he leads them.

By morning, too, Tressan found that the intervening space of the night, since he had seen Madame de Condillac, had cooled his ardour very considerably.
He had reached the incipient stages of regret of his rash promise.
When Captain d'Aubran was announced to him, he bade them ask him to come again in an hour's time.

From mere regrets he was passing now, through dismay, into utter repentance of his promise.

He sat in his study, at his littered writing-table, his head in his hands, a confusion of thoughts, a wild, frenzied striving after invention in his brain.
Thus Anselme found him when he thrust aside the portiere to announce that a Monsieur de Garnache, from Paris, was below, demanding to see the Lord Seneschal at once upon an affair of State.
Tressan's flesh trembled and his heart fainted.

Then, suddenly, desperately, he took his courage in both hands.