"Ah, madame," cried Croustillac, with transport "order, dispose of me--I am your servant, your slave, your dog. These kind words which you have spoken will make me forget all! Your friend! you have called me your friend! Ah, madame, why am I only the poor younger son of a Gascon? I should be so happy to have it in my power to prove my devotion."
"Who knows but that I have a reparation to make you? Await me here; I must go and look for Youmäale and find something, a present, yes, chevalier, a present which I defy you to refuse this time."
"You refuse? Ah, heavens! when I think that you desired to be my husband! Wait here, I will return." And so saying, Angela, who had reached the marble fountain, turned quickly into the path in the park on the side of the house.
"What does she wish to say--to do?" asked Croustillac of himself, looking mechanically into the fountain. Then he exclaimed, with fervor, "It is all the same, I am hers for life and death; she has called me her friend. I shall perhaps never see her again, but all the same, I worship her; that cannot hurt any one; and I do not know but that it will make me a better man. Two days ago I would have accepted the diamonds; to-day I would be ashamed to do so. It is wonderful how love changes one."
Croustillac was suddenly interrupted in the midst of his philosophical reflections. Colonel Rutler, by the uncertain light of the moon, had seen the adventurer walking arm in arm with Blue Beard; he had heard her last words--"my husband; wait for me here." Rutler had no doubt that the Gascon was the man for whom he was looking; he sprang suddenly from his hiding-place, hurled himself upon the chevalier threw a cloak over his face, and, profiting by Croustillac's surprise, felled him to the ground. Then he passed a rope around his hands and had quickly mastered his captive's resistance, thanks to great strength. The chevalier was thus overpowered, garroted and captured in less time than it has taken to write these words.
This accomplished, the colonel held a dagger at Croustillac's throat, and said, "My lord duke, you are dead if you make a movement, or if you call Madame the Duchess to your aid. In the name of William of Orange, King of England, I arrest you for high treason, and you will follow me."