Plainly this subject had ceased to interest him for the moment, yet he answered that it were better for her not to know, adding, “But you do not ask me why you found me where you did?”
“No,” said Valentine composedly. “I know why you broke in. You are come, are you not, on behalf of the Marquis de Kersaint, to secure the treasure supposed to have been hidden in the château during the time of the Fronde?”
Again M. de Brencourt stared at her. “Are you a witch, Madame, or has some Royalist agent——”
“Neither,” said she smiling. “It is no mystery how I know. You have been preceded in your quest here, Monsieur de Brencourt. Let me tell you of the doings of a very rash young man.”
And astonished, annoyed, but half envious in the end (for had she not nursed the boy for four days) the Comte de Brencourt listened. But Valentine had to hear some very trenchant comments on her protégé’s insane proceedings—so her hearer characterised them.
“And where is the treasure really supposed to be?” she asked.
“As far as can be made out,” said her guest, “behind the great hearth, under that curious sort of gallery, in the room where you found me.—Duchesse, I should perhaps ask your permission for my work there; indeed, should I find anything, what right have I to take it?”
“The right of conquest,” answered Valentine. “But, as for my permission, if I thought that withholding it would keep you from going on with your search, I believe I would withhold it. You risk your life, Monsieur de Brencourt—or at least your liberty. Is it worth it?”
His look said as plainly as speech, “So you do care a little for my life—even for my liberty,” but what he replied was, “The King’s cause in Finistère is in desperate need of money.”
“And your leader is determined to secure it,” finished Valentine. She went on, “Who is this Marquis de Kersaint who . . . who sent you?” It was not the way in which she had meant to end the sentence.
Her question had rung in the Comte de Brencourt’s own head pretty often of late. If he could have answered it . . .
“M. de Kersaint, Madame, as his ardent admirer, young de Céligny, will probably have told you, is the émigré who commanded that forlorn hope of an Austrian column at Rivoli. He had been in Imperial service, I believe, for some years, but left it at Campoformio. Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois and his council offered him the post of organising Finistère, where he will, if all goes well, be the general commanding for the King this summer. I was assigned to him as his second-in-command and came over to Brittany with him in January. I know no more of his personal history than that—except that all his family, so I understand, perished in the massacres.”