Stanley J. Weyman

“ On the evening of the second day, a little before supper-time, my wife came to me, and announced that a young lady had waited on her with a tale so remarkable that she craved leave to bring her to me that I might hear it.
"What is it?" I said impatiently.
"It is about Monsieur de Vilain," my wife answered, her face still wearing all the marks of lively astonishment.
"Ha!" I exclaimed. "I will see her, then. But it is not that baggage who——"
"No," my wife answered. "It is another."
"One of your maids?" ”

“ It has never been my custom to encourage too great freedom at my table; but as the company consisted, with a single exception, of my household, and as this person—a Monsieur de Vilain, a young gentleman, the cousin of one of my wife's maids-of-honor—showed himself possessed of modesty as well as wit, I thought that the time excused a little relaxation. ”

“ I could hide my astonishment no longer. "You must be mad, girl!" I said; "mad! You do not know what you are saying! The window of the room in which Vilain was confined is fifty feet from the ground, and you say that your brother, a boy of thirteen, contrived his escape?"
"Yes, Monsieur de Sully," she answered. "And the man who is about to suffer is innocent." ”

“ Here my wife, who shared my anxiety, met me with a face full of meaning. I cried out to know if they had found the paper.
"No," she answered; "but if you will come into your closet I will tell you what I have learned."
I went in with her, and she told me briefly that the manner of Mademoiselle de Mars, one of her maids, had struck her as suspicious. The girl had begun to cry while reading to her; and when questioned had been able to give no explanation of her trouble.
"She is Vilain's cousin?" I said. ”

“ Faugh! and he a young man. I would not be his father for two such crowns as mine!"
As I returned to my lodgings I thought over these words, and I fell to wondering by what stages Vilain had sunk so low. Occasionally admitted to my table, he had always borne himself with a modesty and discretion that had not failed to prepossess me; indeed, the longer I considered the king's saying, the greater was the surprise I felt at this dénouncement, which left me in doubt whether my dulness exceeded my negligence, or the young man's parts surpassed his wickedness. ”

“ Doubtless the girl, for whom my wife, in spite of her occasional fits of reserve and temper, entertained no little liking, enjoyed many opportunities of prying, and would have continued still to serve him had not this last piece of villainy, with the stir which it caused in the house, and the rigorous punishment to be expected in the event of discovery, proved too much for her nerves. ”

“ Favored by these circumstances, we were able to pass round the thicket—some on one side and some on the other—without noise or disturbance; and fortunate enough, having arrived at the place, to discover a man walking uneasily up and down on the very spot where we expected to find him. The evening was so far advanced that it was not possible to be sure that the man was Vilain; but as all depended on seizing him before he had any communication with the Spanish agent, I gave the signal, and two of my men, springing on him from either side, in a moment bore him to the ground and secured him. ”

“ I asked Vilain to whom he had called, but the young man, turning sullen, would answer nothing, except that he knew naught of the paper. I thought it best, therefore, to conduct him at once to my lodgings, whither it will be believed that I returned with a lighter heart than I had gone. It was, indeed, a providential escape.
How to punish the traitor was another matter, for I could scarcely do so adequately without betraying my negligence. ”

“ After sunset, the wind being favorable, he came under Monsieur de Vilain's window, and when it was nearly dark, and the servants and household were at supper, he guided the kite against the balcony outside the window."
"But a man cannot descend by a kite string!" ”

“ In such emergencies I take it to be the duty of a man of standing to bear himself with as much dignity as is consistent with vigor; and neither to allow himself to be carried away by the outcry and disorder of the crowd, nor to omit any direction that may avail. On this occasion, however, my first thought was given to the memorial I had prepared for the king, which I remembered had been taken with other books and papers to a room over the kitchen. I lost not a moment, therefore, in sending Maignan for it ”