CHAPTER VI

IN CONVALESCENCE


Of the week that followed my coming to Lavedan I find some difficulty
in writing. It was for me a time very crowded with events - events
that appeared to be moulding my character anew and making of me a
person different, indeed, from that Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris
they called the Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant
in their total, were of so vague and slight a nature in their detail,
that when I come to write of them I find really little that I may
set down.

Rodenard and his companions remained for two days at the chateau,
and to me his sojourn there was a source of perpetual anxiety, for
I knew not how far the fool might see fit to prolong it. It was
well for me that this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de
Lavedan, who disliked at such a time the presence of men attached
to one who was so notoriously of the King's party. He came at last
to consult me as to what measures might be taken to remove them,
and I - nothing loath to conspire with him to so desirable end -
bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps evil had befallen Monsieur
de Bardelys, and that, instead of wasting his time at Lavedan, he
were better advised to be searching the province for his master.

This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such excellent results
that that very day - within the hour, in fact - Ganymede, aroused