"Get you back to the kitchen or the onion-field from which they took you." And the girl, scarce believing her good fortune, departed with a speed that bordered on the ludicrous.

Tressan had naught to say, no word to stay her with; pretence, he realized, was vain.
"Now, my Lord Seneschal," quoth Garnache, arms akimbo, feet planted wide, and eyes upon the wretched man's countenance, "what may you have to say to me ?" Tressan shifted his position; he avoided the other's glance; he was visibly trembling, and when presently he spoke it was in faltering accents.
"It--it--seems, monsieur, that--ah--that I have been the victim of some imposture." "It had rather seemed to me that the victim chosen was myself." "Clearly we were both victims," the Seneschal rejoined.

Then he proceeded to explain.

"I went to Condillac yesterday as you desired me, and after a stormy interview with the Marquise I obtained from her--as I believed--the person of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.

You see I was not myself acquainted with the lady." Garnache looked at him.