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I turned to hi, and led him aside

"Monsieur le Capitaine," said I, "you find it troublesoh to reconcile your conscience with such arrests as you are charged to make, is it not so

"Mordieu!" he cried, by way of e

"Now, if you should chance to overhear words betraying to you certain people who rebels, your soldier's duty would, nevertheless, compel you to apprehend them, would it not?"

"Why, true I ari present in a certain place you should overhear such words, what course would you pursue?"

"Avoid it like a pestilence, monsieur," he answered promptly

"Then, Monsieur le Capitaine, enerosity to beseech you to let ants to our room upstairs, and to leave us alone there for a half-hour?"

Frankness waswith Castelroux--frankness and his distaste for the business they had charged hih to have theconsented--I invited theh

Since Monsieur de Lesperon did not recognizemy identity, and every reason why I should not As soon as they were seated, I went to the heart of the entleoons across the Garonne I ounded in the shoulder and very exhausted, and I knocked at the gates of Lavedan to crave shelter That shelter, gentlemen, was afforded me, and when I had announced myself as Monsieur de Lesperon, it was all the more cordially because one Monsieur de Marsac, as a friend of the Vicomte de Lavedan, and a partisan in the lost cause of Orleans, happened often to have spoken of a certain Monsieur de Lesperon as his very dear friend I have no doubt, gentlehten the Vicomte But there were reasons for which I trust you will not press me, since I shall find it difficult to answer you with truth"

"But is your name Lesperon?" cried Lesperon

"That, monsieur, is a small matter Whetherpractised a duplicity upon the Vicomte and his family, since I am certainly not the Lesperon whose identity I accepted But if I accepted that identity, monsieur, I also accepted your liabilities, and so I think that you should find it in your heart to extend iveness As Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in Gascony, I was arrested last night at Lavedan, and, as you e of high treason I have not demurred; I have not denied in the hour of trouble the identity that servedthe bitter with the sweet, and I assure you, gentleree"