Which Will You, Madame

At that Carlat bade one fetch the minister. "He understands things," he
muttered, "and I misdoubt this. And see," he cried after the messenger,
"that no word of it come to Mademoiselle!" Instinctively in the maiden
home he reverted to the maiden title.

The messenger went, and came again bringing La Tribe, whose head rose
above the staircase at the moment the envoy below came to a halt before
the gate. Carlat signed to the minister to come forward; and La Tribe,
after sniffing the salt air, and glancing at the long, low, misty shore
and the stiff ugly shape which stood at the end of the causeway, looked
down and met the envoy's eyes. For a moment no one spoke. Only the men
who had remained on the gateway, and had watched the stranger's coming,
breathed hard.

At last, "I bear a message," the man announced loudly and clearly, "for
the lady of Vrillac. Is she present?"

"Give your message!" La Tribe replied.

"It is for her ears only."

"Do you want to enter?"

"No!" The man answered so hurriedly that more than one smiled. He had
the bearing of a lay clerk of some precinct, a verger or sacristan; and
after a fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty black and wore
no sword, though he was girded with a belt. "No!" he repeated, "but if
Madame will come to the gate, and speak to me--"

"Madame has other fish to fry," Carlat blurted out. "Do you think that
she has naught to do but listen to messages from a gang of bandits?"