"I have a shrewd idea what his answer would be," I replied slowly. "Also I have a shrewd idea of what he will say when he learns in what manner you have defied his wishes."
"He can but order me away from Court, or, at most, banish me from France."
"And then what will become of you--of you and your wife?"
"What is to become of us?" he cried in a tone that was almost that of anger. "Think you that I am a pauper dependent upon my uncle's bounty? I have an estate near Palermo, which, for all that it does not yield riches, is yet sufficient to enable us to live with dignity and comfort. I have told Geneviève, and she is content."
I looked at his flushed face and laughed.
"Well, well!" said I. "If you are resolved upon it, it is ended."
He appeared to meditate for a moment, then--"We have decided to be married by the Curé of St. Innocent on the day after to-morrow."
"Crédieu!" I answered, with a whistle, "you have wasted no time in determining your plans. Does Yvonne know of it?"
"We have dared tell nobody," he replied; and a moment later he added hesitatingly, "You, I know, will not betray us."
"Do you know me so little that you doubt me on that score? Have no fear, Andrea, I shall not speak. Besides, to-morrow, or the next day at latest, I leave Canaples."
"You do not mean that you are returning to the Lys de France!"
"No. I am going farther than that. I am going to Paris."
"To Paris?"
"To Paris, to deliver myself up to M. de Montrésor, who gave me leave to go to Reaux some seven weeks ago."
"But it is madness, Gaston!" he ejaculated.
"All virtue is madness in a world so sinful; nevertheless I go. In a measure I am glad that things have fallen out with you as they have done, for when the news goes abroad that you have married Geneviève de Canaples and left the heiress free, your enemies will vanish, and you will have no further need of me. New enemies you will have perchance, but in your strife with them I could lend you no help, were I by."
He sat in silence casting pebbles into the stream, and watching the ripples they made upon the face of the waters.
"Have you told Mademoiselle?" he asked at length.
"Not yet. I shall tell her to-day. You also, Andrea, must take her into your confidence touching your approaching marriage. That she will prove a good friend to you I am assured."