Lagardere answered, composedly: "Mademoiselle de Nevers will be here at
midnight, and will herself present to your Royal Highness the papers that
prove her birth."
"What papers?" asked the king.
And Lagardere answered: "The pages torn from the parish register by her
mother, and confided to me in the moat of Caylus Castle."
The princess leaned forward. "What do you say?" she asked, eagerly, and
the king echoed her question.
Lagardere replied: "The princess gave those papers to me when she placed
her child in my arms, believing that I was her husband, Louis de
Nevers."
Gonzague questioned, with a sneer: "Why should she think you were her
husband?"
Lagardere looked him full in the face. "Because, thanks to you, I gave
the signal agreed upon--her husband's motto, 'I am here.'"