Morvaix now, and I will settle what is your duty. I rule here, absolutely."
"I am not disputing your rule, my lord; but I was not sent here to do your bidding or to cease to do what I deem my duty."
"Out of my sight. It is such canting hypocrites as you who sow discord and do mischief. See to it that you hold your babbling tongue, or I'll find means to silence you." But Dubois fired at this injustice and answered hotly—
"I am no canting hypocrite, my lord, nor am I a recreant coward to flinch and cringe before your angry looks and passionate words. They do but convince me that in this thing you have some evil purpose; and not in Morvaix, no, nor in all France, is there power to silence me if I think I ought to speak."
"Out of my presence before I send for my guards to drive you away for a pestilent ribald malcontent."
"I came of your seeking, not of my own wish," returned Dubois, not one whit abashed by the Governor's violence.
"If I have cause to send for you again you will repent it."
"I am in no ways persuaded of that," returned Dubois, sturdily; and he swung out of the room, little thinking that he had done harm to Gerard by his manful attitude. Yet in a way he had; for the Governor, revolving what had passed, determined not to take the risk of applying to the Cardinal, but to hurry on his marriage, and leave the Church to interfere when it would have the accomplished fact to face.
Had Dubois but known, he would have been more prudent to have appeared to consent to the Governor's plans and to have held out to him the hope of the Cardinal's consent, so that he might have been induced to incur the delay necessary to obtain it. He saw this
