"Miserable clown!" he cried, giving him the opprobrious name by which
the Royalists insulted the Leaguers. "Impudent scoundrel! your science
which makes you the accomplice of men who steal inheritances is all
that prevents me from depriving Normandy of her sorcerer."

So saying, and to Beauvouloir's great satisfaction, the count replaced
the dagger in its sheath.

"Could you not," continued the count, "find yourself for once in your
life in the honorable company of a noble and his wife, without
suspecting them of the base crimes and trickery of your own kind? Kill
my son! take him from his mother! Where did you get such crazy ideas?
Am I a madman? Why do you attempt to frighten me about the life of
that vigorous child? Fool! I defy your silly talk--but remember this,
since you are here, your miserable life shall answer for that of the
mother and the child."

The bonesetter was puzzled by this sudden change in the count's
intentions. This show of tenderness for the infant alarmed him far
more than the impatient cruelty and savage indifference hitherto
manifested by the count, whose tone in pronouncing the last words
seemed to Beauvouloir to point to some better scheme for reaching his
infernal ends. The shrewd practitioner turned this idea over in his
mind until a light struck him.

"I have it!" he said to himself. "This great and good noble does not
want to make himself odious to his wife; he'll trust to the vials of
the apothecary. I must warn the lady to see to the food and medicine
of her babe."