"Kill me, Monsieur; I cannot tell."
"Nom de dieu!" he shouted, springing up.
I shut my eyes and waited. Had he slain me then and there it were no
more than my deserts.
"Monsieur," said Vigo, immovably, "shall I go for the boot?"
I opened my eyes then. Monsieur stood quite still, his brow knotted, his
hands clenched as if to keep them off me.
"Monsieur," I said, "send for the boot, the thumbscrew, whatever you
please. I deserve it, and I will bear it. Monsieur, it is not that I
will not tell. It is something stronger than I. I _cannot_."
He burst into an angry laugh.
"Say you are possessed of a devil, and I will believe it. My faith!
though you are a low-born lad and I Duke of St. Quentin, I seem to be
getting the worst of it."
"There is the boot, Monsieur."
Monsieur laughed again, no less angrily.
"That does not help me, my good Vigo. I cannot torture a Broux."
"There Monsieur is wrong. The lad has been disloyal and insolent, if he
is a Broux."
"Granted, Vigo," said M. le Duc. But he did not add, "Fetch the boot."
Vigo went on with steady persistence. "He has not been loyal to Monsieur
and his interests in refusing to tell what he knows. And if he goes
counter to Monsieur's interests he is a traitor, Broux or no Broux. He
has no claim to be treated as other than an enemy. These are serious
times. Monsieur does not well to play with his dangers. The boy must
tell what he knows. Am I to go for the boot, Monsieur?"
M. le Duc was silent for a moment, while the hot flush that had sprung
to his face died away. Then he answered Vigo:
"Nevertheless, it is owing to Félix that I shall not walk out to meet my
death to-night."
The secretary had stood silent for a long time, fingering nervously the
papers on the table. I had forgotten his presence, when now he stepped
forward and said:
"If I might be permitted a suggestion, Monsieur--"
Monsieur silenced him with a sharp gesture.
"Félix Broux," he said to me, "you have been following a bad plan. No
man can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You are either my
loyal servant or my enemy, one thing or the other. Now I am loath to
hurt you. You have seen how I am loath to hurt you. I give you one more
chance to be honest. Go and think it over. If in half an hour you have
decided that you are my true man, well and good. If not, by St. Quentin,
we will see what a flogging can do!"