"What of the Duke?"
"He is alive," Herrick answered. "Mine is a tale you may well find difficult to believe."
"For unbelief, circumstances must be my excuse," she answered after a moment's pause. "There is yet time for repentance. Sit on this stool—you are still weak, I see—and tell us the story."
Herrick told what had happened from the moment Lemasle had made his dash across the clearing, repeated even the old hag's doggerel rhyme, and his own last consciousness of a star above him which pointed toward home.
"These thieves did not say to whom they would take him?" Christine asked him when he had finished.
"To the enemy who would pay highest. These robbers were in no doubt which direction to go. That a big reward would be paid for the Duke's person seemed well known to them. Have none been sent to spy in the enemies' borders, since it would appear spies are so frequent in Montvilliers?"
"We have ever fought our foe openly," she said, turning sharply from the fire by which she was standing.
"One must meet craft with craft," Herrick answered.
"Have you no word of advice, Captain Lemasle?" she asked.