"Ah! But no! I believe she is a most excellent woman."

"Only a little sleepy—hein? Well, I will change my mind about that offer I refused. I will send Riette every day to learn needlework and Italian with her cousins. She will teach more than she learns, by the bye! Yes, our little guetteuse shall watch for you, Angelot. But on one condition—that she knows no more than she does already. You can ask her what questions you please, of course—but no letters or messages, mind; I trust to your honour. I will not have the child made a go-between in my cousin's house, or mixed up with matters too old for her. She knows enough already to do what you want, to tell you that Mademoiselle Helene is safe and well. I will have nothing more, you understand. But I think you will be wise to keep away, and this plan may make absence bearable."

He turned his anxious, smiling face to Angelot. And thus the entire reconciliation was brought about; the two understood and loved each other better than ever before, and Riette, as she had herself suggested, was to take her part in helping Angelot.

Neither Monsieur Urbain, in his great discretion, nor his wife, in her extreme dislike of Lancilly and all connected with it, chose to say a word either to Angelot or his uncle about the strange little scene that had closed the dinner-party. It was better forgotten, they thought. And Angelot was too proud, too conscious of their opinion, to speak of it himself.

So the three talked that night about Sonnay-le-Loir and the markets there, and about the neighbours that Urbain had met, and about certain defects in one of his horses, and then about the coming vintage and its prospects.

Urbain fetched down a precious book, considerably out of date now, the Theatre d'Agriculture of Olivier de Serres, Seigneur du Pradel, and began studying, as he did every year, the practical advice of that excellent writer on the management of vineyards. The experience of Angelot, gained chiefly in wandering round the fields with old Joubard, differed on some points from that of Monsieur de Serres. He argued with his father, not at all in the fashion of a young man hopelessly in love; but indeed, though Helene was the centre of all his thoughts, he was far from hopeless.

There was a bright spring of life in Angelot, a faith in the future, which kept him above the most depressing circumstances. The waves might seem overwhelming, the storm too furious; Angelot would ride on the waves with an unreasoning certainty that they would finally toss him on the shore of Paradise. Had not Helene kissed him? Could he not still feel the sweet touch of her lips, the velvet softness of that pale cheek? Could his eyes lose the new dream in their sleepy dark depths, the dream of waking smiles and light in hers, of bringing colour and joy into that grey, mysterious world of sadness! No; whatever the future might hold—and he did not fear it—Angelot could say to his fate:—

"To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day."

There was such a glory of happiness behind the present clouds that the boy had never seemed to his mother more light-hearted. She listened to his talk with his father, the smiling dispute as to what age of the moon was the most lucky for beginning the vintage. Monsieur de Serres, with a kindly word of indulgence for those who thought much of the moon, contented himself with recommending fine weather and a convenient day. Joubard, and Angelot with him, held to the old country superstition of the waning moon.

This would throw the vintage later than Monsieur Urbain wished, and he pointed out that De Serres was a sensible man and a philosopher. Silly fancies, lunatical, astrological, were not much in his line.

"He is also a Calvinist," said Madame de la Mariniere. "He has no religion—no real religion. He believes in nothing but what he can see. Take my advice, leave Olivier on the shelf, and stick to the old ways of the country."

"Ah, bah! and do you know why my farming has always succeeded?" said her husband, laughing. "Because I have been guided by the wisdom of De Serres. He is a rare man. He has as little superstition as Montaigne himself."

"And is as worthy of a bonfire!" said Anne, but she smiled.

She was sitting at her tapestry frame, beside her two wax candles, and while her needle went industriously in and out, her eyes were constantly lifted to where those two sat talking. Urbain turned over the leaves of his fat, red-edged quarto, lingering lovingly on favourite pages. Angelot laughed and chattered, leaning easily on the table. The adventure of last night seemed to have left no impression upon him.

"How foolish that dear Joseph was!" his mother thought. "But oh, what a contrast to that odious dinner-party! Now, this is peace, this is what I have prayed for, to have them both happy at home, and free of Lancilly."

But when she kissed her boy that night, looking eagerly into his face, something cold touched her heart. For his look was far away, and the smile in his eyes was not for her at all.

"Urbain," she said, "are you sure that all is right with Ange?"

"All, my beloved, except a little superstition about the moon, of which life will cure him," her husband answered with his queer smile.

"The moon! Yes, he talked last night about the moon," she said. "That is what I mean, Urbain, not your moon for the vintage."

"Oh! la belle Helene!" he said lightly. "Don't derange yourself. I did not tell you—I found her mother this morning in a resolute state of mind. She does not intend to have the young lady on her hands long. If not one marriage, it will be another, you will see. Herve will find he must leave the matter to his wife. Ange! bah! children's fancies are not worth a thought. If you lived more in the world, you would be happier, my poor Anne."

"I don't think so," Anne said as she turned away.

The next morning Monsieur Urbain stayed indoors till breakfast time. This was often enough a habit of his, but he was generally buried in his books and did not care to be disturbed. To-day he wandered about the house, took a turn into the porch, observed the clouds, looked at his watch, and behaved generally with a restlessness that Anne would have found unaccountable; but she was out with a sick woman in the village. She came in soon after ten, followed by Angelot from his shooting.

They sat down to breakfast, that warm day, with doors and windows open. The old, low room with its brick-paved floor was shady and pleasant, opening on the stone court where the porch was; the polished table was loaded with fruit. Angelot's dog lay stretched in a patch of sunshine; he was ordered out several times, but always came back. When the heat became too much he rose panting, and flung his long body into the shade; then the chilly bricks drove him back into the sun again.

The three were rather silent. Urbain, who always led their talk, was a little preoccupied that morning. After finishing his second large slice of melon, he looked up at Angelot and said, "After breakfast I will go with you to La Joubardiere. We must settle with Joubard about the vintage; it is time things were fixed. I say the first of October. As to his moons, I cannot listen to such absurdities. He must arrange what suits me and the weather and the vines. First of all, me."

"That is decided," said Angelot, smiling. "Joubard will shake his head, but he will obey you. You are a tyrant in your way."

"Perhaps!" Urbain said, screwing up his mouth. "A benevolent despot. Obedience is good for the soul—n'est-ce pas, madame? I give my commands for the good of others, and pure reason lies behind them. What is it, Nego?"

The dog lifted his black head and growled. There was a sharp clank of footsteps on the stones outside.

"A bas, Nego!" cried Angelot, as a soldier, with a letter in his hand, appeared at the window.

The dog sprang up, barking furiously, about to fly at him.

"See to your dog! Take him away!" Monsieur Urbain shouted to Angelot.

The young man threw himself on the dog and dragged him, snarling, out of the room. Anne looked up with surprise at the soldier, who saluted, standing outside the low window-sill. Urbain went to him, and took the letter from his hand.

"It is Monsieur de la Mariniere?" said the man. "At your service. From Monsieur le General. Is there an answer?"

"Wait a moment, my man," said Urbain.

He broke the large red seal, standing by the window. One glance showed him the contents of the letter, for they were only three words and an initial.

—"Tout va bien. R."—

But though the words were few, their significance was great, and it kept the sturdy master of La Mariniere standing motionless for a minute or two in a dream, with the open letter in his hand, forgetful alike of the messenger waiting outside, and of his wife behind him at the table. A dark stain of colour stole up into his sunburnt face, his strong mouth quivered, then set itself obstinately. So! this thing was to happen. Treason to Herve, was it? No, it was for his good, for everybody's good. Sentiment was out of place in a political matter such as this. Sacrifice of a girl? well, what was gained in the world without sacrifice? Let her think herself Iphigenia, if she chose; but, after all, many girls as noble and as pretty had shown her the way she was to go.

"All goes well!" he muttered between his teeth. "This gentleman is impatient; he does not let the grass grow. Odd enough that we have to thank our dear Joseph for suggesting it!" Then he woke to outside things, among them the waiting soldier, standing there like a wooden image in the blaze of sunshine.

"No answer, my friend," he said.

He took out a five-franc piece and gave it to the man, not without a glance at the splendid Roman head upon it.

"He only needs a little idealising!" he said to himself; then aloud to the soldier: "My best compliments to Monsieur le General. Go to the kitchen; they will give you something to eat and drink after your ride."

"Merci, monsieur!" the soldier saluted and went.

Urbain folded the letter, put it into his pocket, and returned silently to his breakfast. Something about him warned his wife that it would be better not to ask questions; but Anne seldom observed such warnings, for she did not know what it was to be afraid of Urbain, though she was often angry with him. With Angelot it was different; he had sometimes reason to fear his father; but for Anne, the tenderness was always greater than the severity.

They were alone for a few minutes, Angelot not having reappeared. While Urbain hurriedly devoured his sorrel and eggs, his wife gazed at him with anxious eyes across the table.

"You correspond with that odious General!" she said. "What about, my dear friend? What can he have to say to you?"

"Ah, bah! the curiosity of women!" said Monsieur Urbain, bending over his plate.

"Yes," Anne said, smiling faintly. "It exists, and therefore it must be gratified. Is not that a doctrine after your own heart? What was that letter about, tell me? You could not hide that it interested you deeply."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Remember, we never talk politics, you and I. Not even the politics of the department."

"It has something to do with the Chouans, then? With Joseph? Ah, but do not trust that man, Urbain! he has a horrid face. Did you see him yesterday? Did he say anything about Joseph—and about Ange? He has a spite against Ange, I believe."

"Do not be uneasy," Monsieur Urbain replied. "I did see him yesterday, if you must know, my dear Anne. He is friendly; well, you can see the letter. I do not choose to explain it altogether, but it speaks for itself."

He took out the letter, unfolded it, and handed it to her with a curious smile.

"Tout va bien!" Anne read aloud. "What does he mean?"

"He means, I suppose, that my mind may be at rest. You see that he is in a good temper."

"It looks like it, certainly. But that is strange, too. Had Herve de Sainfoy sent him an answer? When you saw him, did he know—"

"Yes, he knew."

"How did he bear it?"

"Like a man."

"Really! One dislikes him a little less for that. But still, Urbain, why should you have anything to do with him? Is it not enough that the Prefect is so friendly to us all? With his protection, Joseph and Ange are not in any real danger."

"It is best to have two strings to one's bow," answered Urbain. "I prefer Ratoneau a friend to Ratoneau an enemy."

"I should like best no Ratoneau at all," said Anne. She flicked the letter back to him from the tips of her fingers, lightly and scornfully. "How could Adelaide talk to him for a whole evening!" she sighed.

"Adelaide is a woman of the world, as we have decided before," said Urbain. "Say no more; here is the boy. It is best that he should know nothing of this—do you understand?"

Anne understood, or thought she did; and a nod and smile from her went a long way towards reassuring Angelot, who had been a little puzzled by the sudden appearance of the soldier. But he was not curious; his father was by no means in the habit of telling him everything, making indeed a thin cloud of wilful mystery about some of his doings. It had always been so; and Angelot had grown up with a certain amount of blind trust in the hand which had guided his mother and himself through the thorny years of his childhood.

At this moment he was distracted by a very serious attack on Nego. The dog would have to be shot, Monsieur Urbain said, if he received people so savagely; and in defending Nego the rest of Angelot's breakfast-time was spent.

Later on he was a little surprised by his father's telling him to go alone to La Joubardiere and arrange about the vintage. Urbain had remembered business, he said, which called him to Lancilly. He turned away and left the room without a word, without seeing, or perhaps choosing to see, the sudden flame of irritation in Anne's dark eyes, the light of another feeling in Angelot's.

The young fellow lingered a moment in the dining-room window, and watched the sturdy figure walking away in linen clothes and a straw hat, the shoulders slightly bent from study, the whole effect that of honest strength and capacity, not at all of intrigue and ruse. Then he turned round and met his mother's eyes. For a moment it seemed as if they must read each other's soul. But Anne only said: "Do not delay, my boy. Go to Joubard; arrange things to please your father. We must remember; he is wiser than we are; he does the best for us all."

"Yes, my little mother," said Angelot. "Only—Nego shall not be shot. Yes, I am going this instant."

He took her hand and kissed it. She pushed back his hair and kissed his forehead.

"And what are you going to do?" he said. "Come with me to see the old Joubards."

"No, no. I must go to the church," she said. "I was hurried this morning."

As Urbain crossed the valley, going through the little hamlet, down the white stony lane, between high hedges, then by field paths across to the lower poplar-shaded road, then along by the slow, bright stream to the bridge and the first white houses of Lancilly, he thought with some amusement and satisfaction of that morning's diplomacy. He had not the smallest intention of taking his dear and pretty Anne into his confidence. The little plot, which Adelaide and he had hatched so cleverly, must remain between them and the General.

This power of suggesting was a wonderful thing, truly. A word had been enough to set the whole machinery going. If he rightly understood that Tout va bien, it meant that the Prefect was ready at once to do his part. That seemed a little strange; but after all, De Mauves would not have reached his present position without some cleverness to help him, and no doubt he saw, as Urbain did, the excellence of this arrangement for everybody all round. Herve de Sainfoy was really foolish; his own enemy: Urbain and Adelaide were his friends; they knew how to make use of the mammon of unrighteousness. The advantages of such a connection with the Empire were really uncountable. Urbain was quite sure that he was justified in plotting against Herve for his good. Did he not love him like a brother? Would he not have given him the last penny in his purse, the last crust if they were starving? And as for misleading Anne a little, that too seemed right to his conscience. It was only a case of economising truth, after all. In the end, the Ratoneau connection would be useful in saving Joseph and his friends, no doubt, from some of the consequences of their foolishness.

It was with the serenity of success and conscious virtue, deepened and brightened by the joy of pleasing the beautiful Adelaide, that Urbain, finding her alone, put the General's letter into her hand.

There was an almost vulture look in the fair face as she stooped over it.

"Ah—and what does this mean?"

"It means," Urbain said, "that General Ratoneau has seen the Prefect, and that that excellent man is ready to oblige him—and you, madame."

"Me?" Adelaide looked up sharply, with a sudden flush. "I hope you gave no message from me."

"How could I? you sent none. I am to be trusted, I assure you. I simply hinted that if the affair could be managed from outside, you would not be too much displeased."

"Nor would you," she said.

"No—no, I should not." He spoke rather slowly, stroking his face, looking at her thoughtfully. This pale passion of eagerness was not becoming, somehow, to his admired Adelaide.

"Nor would you," she repeated. "Come, Urbain, be frank. You know it is necessary, from your point of view, that Helene should be married soon. You know that silly boy of yours fancies himself in love with her."

"It would not be unnatural. All France might do the same. But pardon me, I do not know it."

"You mean that he has not confided in you. Well, well, do not lay hold of my words; you had eyes the night before last; you saw what I saw, what every one must have seen. You confessed as much to me yesterday, so do not contradict yourself now."

"Very well—yes!" Urbain smiled and bowed. "Let us agree that my poor boy may have such a fancy. But what does it matter?"

"Of course it does not really matter, because such a marriage would be absolutely impossible for Helene. But it is better for a young man not to have such wild ambitions in his head at all. You know I am right. You agree with me. That is one reason why you are working with me now."

"It is true, madame. You are right. But did it not seem to you, the other night, that Angelot himself saw the impossibility—"

"No, it did not," she said, and her eyes flashed. "He had to protect himself from his uncle's madness—that was nothing. By the bye, that wonderful brother of yours has changed his mind about Henriette. He sent her here this morning with a letter to me, and she is now doing her lessons with Sophie and Lucie."

"I am delighted to hear it," said Urbain, absently. "But now, to return to our subject—the Ratoneau marriage—" he paused an instant, and whatever his words and actions may have been, Madame de Sainfoy was a little punished for her scorn of his son by the accent of utter disgust with which he dwelt on the General's name.

For she felt it, and he had the small satisfaction of seeing that she did. She had trodden on her worm a little too hard, in telling Ange de la Mariniere's father that he might as well dream of a princess as of Helene de Sainfoy.

"Yes, yes," she said hastily, and smiled brilliantly on Urbain as much as to say, "Dear friend, I was joking. We understand each other.—Tell me everything you did yesterday—what he said, and all about it," she went on aloud. "Ah, Herve!" as her husband sauntered into the room—"do have the goodness to fetch me those patterns of silk hangings from the library. This dear Urbain has come at the right moment to be consulted about them."



CHAPTER XV

HOW HENRIETTE READ HISTORY TO SOME PURPOSE

The inside of the Chateau de Lancilly was a curious labyrinth of arched stone passages paved with brick, cold on the hottest day, with short flights of steps making unexpected changes of level; every wall so thick as to hold deep cupboards, even small rooms, or private staircases climbing steeply up or down. The old ghosts of the chateau, who slipped in and out of these walls and flitted about the hidden steps, had lost a good deal of their credit in the last twenty years. No self-respecting ghost could show itself to Urbain de la Mariniere, and few mortals besides him haunted the remote passages while the great house stood empty.

And now one may be sure that the ghosts were careful to hide themselves from Madame de Sainfoy. No half-lights, no chilly shadows wavering on the wall, no quick passing of a wind from nowhere, such hints and vanishings as might send a shiver through ordinary bones, had any effect on Adelaide's cool dignity. The light of reason shone in her clear-cut face; her voice, penetrating and decided, was enough to frighten any foolish spirit who chose to sweep rushingly beside her through the wall as she walked along the passages.

"Do you hear the rats?" she would say. "How can we catch them? These old houses are infested with them."

She spoke so firmly that even the ghost itself believed it was a rat, and scuttled away out of hearing.

To reach the north wing, where her three girls and their governess lived, Madame de Sainfoy had to mount a short flight of steps from the hall, then to go along a vaulted corridor lighted only by a small lucarne window here and there, then down a staircase which brought her to the level of the great salons and the dining-room at the opposite end, which formerly, like this north wing, had hung over the moat, but were now being brought nearer the ground by Monsieur de Sainfoy's earthworks.

This old north wing had been less restored than any other part of the chateau. The passage which ran through it, only lighted by a window at the foot of the staircase, ended at the arched door of a silent, deserted chapel with an altar on its east side, a quaint figure of Our Lady in a carved niche, and a window half-darkened with ivy leaves, overhanging the green and damp depths of the moat, now empty of water.

Before reaching the chapel—lonely and neglected, but not desecrated, for by the care of Madame de la Mariniere mass had been said in it once a year—there were four doors, two on each side of the corridor. The first on the left was that of the room where Sophie and Lucie both slept and did their lessons, a large room looking out west to the gardens and woods behind Lancilly; and opening from this, with a separate door into the passage, was Mademoiselle Moineau's room. On the right the rooms were smaller, the chapel cutting them off to the north, with a secret staircase in the thickness of the wall by the altar. A maid slept in the first; and the second, nearest the chapel, but with a wide, cheerful view of its own across the valley to the east, was Helene's room.

Madame de Sainfoy, after disposing of Herve and hearing all that Urbain had to tell her, with digressions to the almost equally interesting subject of silk hangings, set off across the chateau to inspect the young people at their lessons. She was an excellent mother. She did not, like so many women, leave her children entirely to the consciences of their teachers.

Her firm step, the sharp touch which lifted the heavy old latch, straightened the backs of Sophie and Lucie as if by magic. Lucie looked at her mother in terror. Too often her round shoulders caught that unsparing eye, and the dreaded backboard was firmly strapped on before Madame de Sainfoy left the room; for Lucie, growing tall and inclined to stoop, was going through the period of torture which Helene, for the same reason, had endured before her.

They all got up, including Mademoiselle Moineau. The two girls went to kiss their mother's hand; Henriette, more slowly, followed their example.

"I hope your new pupil is obedient, mademoiselle," said Madame de Sainfoy, as her cold glance met the child's fearless eyes.

Mademoiselle Moineau cocked her little arched nose—she was very like a fluffy old bird—and smiled rather mischievously.

"We shall do very well, when Mademoiselle de la Mariniere understands us," she said. "I have no wish to complain, but at present she is a little sure of herself, a little distrustful of me, and so—"

"Ignorance and ill-breeding," said the Comtesse, coolly. "Excuse her—she will know better in time."

Riette's eyes fell, and she became crimson. The good-natured Sophie caught her hand and squeezed it, thinking she was going to cry; but such weakness was far from Riette; the red of her cheeks was a flame of pure indignation. Ignorant! Ill-bred! She had been very much pleased when the little papa decided suddenly on sending her to join Sophie and Lucie in their lessons; she had been seized with a romantic admiration for Helene, independent of the interest she took in her for Angelot's sake, and in other ways the Chateau de Lancilly was to her enchanted ground. And now this fair, tall lady, whom she had disliked from the first, talked of her ignorance and ill-breeding! She drew herself up, her lips trembled; another such word and she would have walked out of the room, fled down the corridor, escaped alone across the fields to Les Chouettes. She knew every turn, every step in the chateau, every path in the country, far better than these people did; they would not easily overtake her.

But Madame de Sainfoy was not thinking of Henriette.

"What are you doing? Reading history?" she said to the others. "Mademoiselle, I thought it was my wish that Helene should read history with her sisters. The other day, if you remember, she could not tell Monsieur de Sainfoy the date of the marriage of Philippe Duc d'Orleans with the Princess Henriette of England. It is necessary to know these things. The Emperor expects a correct knowledge of the old Royal Family. Where is Helene?"

"She is in her own room, madame. Allow me an instant—"

The three children were left alone. Madame de Sainfoy walked quickly into Mademoiselle Moineau's room, the little governess waddling after her, and the door was shut.

Riette made a skip in the air and pirouetted on one foot. Then while Sophie and Lucie stared open-mouthed, she was on a chair; then with a wild spring, she was hanging by her hands to the top cornice of a great walnut-wood press; then she was on her feet again, light as an india-rubber ball.

"Ah, mon Dieu! sit down, Riette, or we shall all be beaten!" sighed the trembling Lucie.

"Don't be frightened, children!" murmured Riette. "Where is our book? Now, my angels, think, think of Henri Quatre and all his glory!"

In the meanwhile, Mademoiselle Moineau laid her complaint of Helene before the Comtesse. Something was certainly the matter with the girl; she would not read, she would not talk, her tasks of needlework were neglected, she did not care to go out, or to do anything but sit in her window and gaze across the valley.

"Of course there has been no opportunity—they have never met, except in public—but if it were not entirely out of the question—" Mademoiselle Moineau stammered, blushing, conscious, though she would never confess it, of having nodded one day for a few minutes under a certain mulberry tree. "The other night, madame, at the dinner party, did it strike you that a certain gentleman was a little forward, a little intimate—"

Madame de Sainfoy lifted her brows and shrugged her shoulders.

"You mean young La Mariniere? Bah! nonsense, mademoiselle. Only a little cousin, and a quite impossible one. We cannot keep him quite at arm's length, because of his father, who has been so excellent. But if you really think that Helene has any such absurdity in her head—"

"Oh, madame, I do not say so. I have no positive reason for saying so. She has told me nothing—"

"I should think not," said Madame de Sainfoy, shortly.

Mademoiselle Moineau was dismissed back to her pupils, whom she found, under Henriette's surveillance, deep in the romance of French history.

Madame de Sainfoy crossed the passage and tried Helene's door. It was not fastened, as she had half expected. Opening it quickly and gently, she found her daughter sitting in the window, as the governess had described her, with both arms stretched out upon its broad sill, and eyes fixed in a long wistful gaze on the small spire of the church at La Mariniere, and the screen of trees which partly hid the old manor buildings from view.

"What are you doing, Helene?" said Madame de Sainfoy.

Her voice, though low, was peremptory. The girl started up, turning her white face and tired eyes from the window. Her mother walked across the room and sat down in a high-backed chair close by.

"What a waste of time," she said, "to sit staring into vacancy! Why are you not reading history with your sisters, as I wished?"

"Mamma—my head aches," said Helene.

"Then bathe it with cold water. What is the matter with you, child? You irritate me with your pale looks. Do you dislike Lancilly? Do you wish yourself back in Paris?"

"No, mamma."

"I could excuse you if you did," said Madame de Sainfoy, with a smile. "I find the country insupportable myself, but you see, as the fates have preserved to us this rat-infested ruin, we must make the best of it. I set you an example, Helene. I interest myself in restoring and decorating. If you were to help me, time would not seem so long."

She did not speak at all unkindly.

"I like the country. I like Lancilly much better than Paris," said Helene.

There was a moment's gleam of pity in Madame de Sainfoy's bright blue eyes. Languid, sad, yet not rebellious or sulky, her beautiful girl stood drooping like a white lily in the stern old frame of the window. The mother believed in discipline, and Helene's childhood and youth had been spent in an atmosphere of cold severity. Punishments would have been very frequent, if her father's rather spasmodic and inconsequent kindness had not stepped in to save her. She owed a good deal to her father, but these debts only hardened her mother against both of them. Yet Madame de Sainfoy was not without a certain pride in the perfect form and features, the delicate, exquisite grace and distinction, which was one of these days to dazzle the Tuileries. On that, her resolution was firm and unchanging. Tout va bien! One of these days the Emperor's command might be expected. With that confident certainty in the background, she felt she need not trouble herself much about her husband's objections or her daughter's fancies.

"You are a very difficult young woman, Helene," she said, still not unkindly, and her eyes travelled with slow consideration over every detail as the girl stood there. "I do not like that gown of yours," she said. "Don't wear it again. Give it to Jeanne—do you hear?"

"Must I? But it is not worn out, mamma. I would rather keep it," the girl said quickly, stroking her soft blue folds, which were in truth a little faded.

Then she flushed suddenly, for what reason could she give for loving the old gown! Not, certainly, that she had worn it one day in the garden—one day when Mademoiselle Moineau went to sleep!

"You will do as I tell you," said Madame de Sainfoy. Then she added with a slight laugh—"You are so fond of your own way, that I wonder you should object to being married. Do you think, perhaps, you would find a husband still more tyrannical?"

The girl shook her head. "No," she murmured.

"Then what is your reason? for you evidently intend not to be married at all."

"I do not say that," said Helene; and Madame de Sainfoy was conscious, with sudden anger, that once more the dreamy grey eyes travelled out of the open window, far away to those lines of poplars and clipped elms opposite.

"How different things were when I was young!" she said. "My marriage with your father was arranged by our relations, without our meeting at all. I never saw him till everything was concluded. If I had disliked him, I could neither have said nor done anything."

"That was before the Revolution," said Helene, with a faint smile.

"Indeed you are very much mistaken," her mother said quickly, "if you think the Revolution has altered the manners of society. It may have done good in some ways—I believe it did—but in teaching young people that they could disobey their parents, it did nothing but harm. And it deceived them, too. As long as our nation lasts, marriages will be arranged by those who know best. In your case, but for your father's absurd indulgence, you would have been married months ago. However, these delays cannot last for ever. I think you will not refuse the next marriage that is offered you."

The girl looked wonderingly at her mother, half in terror, half in hope. She spoke meaningly, positively. What marriage could this be?

"What would you say to a distinguished soldier?" said Madame de Sainfoy, watching her keenly. "Then, with some post about the Court and your husband always away at the wars, you could lead a life as independent as you chose. Now, pray do not think it necessary to throw yourself out of the window. I make a suggestion, that is all. I am quite aware that commands are thrown away on a young lady of your character."

"What do you mean, mamma?" the girl panted, with a quick drawing-in of her breath. "Who is it? Not that man who dined here—that man who was talking to you?"

Madame de Sainfoy flamed suddenly into one of those cold rages which had an effectiveness all their own.

"Idiot!" she said between her teeth. "Contemptible little fool! And if General Ratoneau, a handsome and distinguished man, did you the honour of asking for your hand, would you expect me to tell him that you had not taken a fancy to him?"

"Mon Dieu!" Helene murmured. She turned away to the window for a moment, clasping her hands upon her breast; then, white as death, came back and stood before her mother.

"It is what I feared," she said. "It is what you were talking about; I knew it at the time. That was why you sent me out of the room—you wanted to talk it over. Have you settled it, then? What did papa say?"

Madame de Sainfoy hesitated. She had not at all intended to mention any name, or to make Helene aware to any extent of the true facts of the case. Her sudden anger had carried her further than she meant to go. She neither wished to frighten the girl into flying to her father, nor to tell her that he had refused his consent.

"Really, Helene, you are my despair," she said, and laughed, her eyes fixed on the girl's lovely, changing face. "You leap to conclusions in an utterly absurd way. If such a thing were already settled, or even under serious consideration, would you not have been formally told of it before now? Would your father have kept silence for two days, and would you not have heard of another visit from General Ratoneau? You would not be surprised, I suppose, to hear that he admires you—and by the bye, I think your taste is bad if you do not return his admiration—but that is absolutely all I have to tell you."

"Is it?" the girl sighed. "Ah, mamma, how you terrified me!"

Madame de Sainfoy shrugged her shoulders.

"I wonder," she said, "how I have deserved such a daughter as you! No courage, no ambition for your family, no feeling of duty to them. Nothing but—I am ashamed to say it, Helene, and you can deny it if it is not true—some silly sentimental fancy which carries your eyes and thoughts to that old farm over there. Ah, I see I am right. When did this preposterous nonsense begin? Why, the question is not worth asking, for you have hardly even spoken to that cousin of yours, and I will do him the justice to say that he, on his side, has no such ridiculous idea. He does not sit staring at Lancilly as you do at La Mariniere! Yes, Helene, I am ashamed of you."

Helene stood crimson and like a culprit before her mother. She hardly understood her words; she only knew that her mother had read her heart, had known how to follow her thoughts as they escaped from this stony prison away to sunshine and free air and waving trees and a happy, homely life; away to Angelot. What was there to be ashamed of, after all? She expected no one to be on her side; she dreaded their anger and realised keenly what it might be; but as for shame!

Even as Madame de Sainfoy spoke, the thought of her young lover seemed to surround Helene with an atmosphere of joyful sweetness. Yes, he was wonderful, her Angelot. Would he ever be afraid or ashamed to confess his love for her? Why could she not find courage then to tell of hers for him?

With a new and astonishing courage Helene lifted her long lashes and looked up into her mother's face. It was a timid glance at the best; the furtive shadow lingered still in her eyes, result of a life of cold repression.

"Why should I deny it, mamma?" she said. Her voice was distinct, though it trembled. "It is true, and I am not ashamed of it. Angelot has been kinder to me than any one in the world. Yes—I love him."

"Ah!" Madame de Sainfoy drew a long breath. "Ah! Voyons! And what next, pray?"

"If you care at all to make me happy," the girl said, and she gained a little hope, heaven knows why, as she went on, "you and papa will—will give me to him. Yes, that is what I want. Mamma, see, I have no ambition. I don't care to live in Paris or to go to Court—I hate it! I want to live in the country—over there—at La Mariniere."

A smile curled Madame de Sainfoy's pretty mouth. It was not an agreeable one; but it frightened Helene much less than an angry word would have done. She came forward a step or two, knelt on her mother's footstool, timidly rested a hand on her knee. Madame de Sainfoy sat immovable, looking down and smiling.

"Speak, mamma," murmured the girl.

"Helene, are you deaf?" said Madame de Sainfoy. "Did you hear what I said just now?"

"You told me I had no courage or ambition. I suppose it is true."

"I told you something else, which you did not choose to hear. I told you that this fancy of yours was not only foolish and low, but one-sided. Trust me, Helene. I know more of your precious cousin than you do, my dear."

"Pardon! Ah no, mamma, impossible."

"It is true. The other night, as you guessed, I sent you away that I might discuss your future with your father and his family. That very absurd person, Cousin Joseph de la Mariniere, chose to give his opinion without being asked for it, and took upon himself to suggest a marriage between you and that little nephew of his. Take your hand away. I dislike being touched, as you know."

The girl's pale face was full of life and colour now, her melancholy eyes of light. She snatched away her hand and rose quickly to her feet, stepping back to her old place near the window.

"Dear Uncle Joseph!" she murmured under her breath.

"The young man was not grateful. He said in plain words that he did not wish to marry you. Yes, look as bewildered as you please. Ask your father, ask either of his cousins. I will say for young Ange that he has more wits than you have; he does not waste his time craving for the impossible. If it were not so, I should send you away to a convent. As it is, I shall stop this little flirtation by taking care that you do not meet him, except under supervision."

The girl looked stricken. She leaned against the wall, once more white as a statue, once more terrified.

"Angelot said—but it is not possible!" she whispered very low.

"Angelot very sensibly said that he did not care for you. Under those circumstances I think you are punished enough; and I will not insist on knowing how you came to deceive yourself so far. But I advise you not to spend any more time staring at that line of poplars," said Madame de Sainfoy. "Learn not to take in earnest what other people mean in play; your country cousin admires you, no doubt, but he knows more of the world than you do, most idiotic and ill-behaved girl!"

As she said the last words she rose and crossed the room to the door, throwing them scornfully over her shoulder. Then she passed out, and Helene, planted there, heard the key grind in the lock.

She was a prisoner in her room; but this did not greatly trouble her. She went back to the window, leaned her arms on the sill, gazed once more at La Mariniere, its trees motionless in the afternoon sunlight, thought of the old room as she had first seen it that moonlit evening with its sweet air of peace and home, thought of the noble, delicate face of Angelot's mother, thought of Angelot himself as the candle-light fell upon him, of the first wonderful look, the electric current which changed the world for herself and him. And then all that had happened since, all that her mother did not and never must know. Was it really possible, could it be believed that he meant nothing, that he did not love her after all? No, it could not be believed. And yet how to be sure, without seeing him again?

Ah, well, for some people life must be all sadness, and Helene had long believed herself one of these. Angelot's love seemed to have proved her wrong, but now the leaf in her book was turned back again, and she found herself at the old place. Not quite that either, for the old deadness had been waked into an agony of pain. Angelot false! Hell must certainly be worse to bear after a taste of Paradise.

She laid her fair head down on her arms at the open window, high in the bare wall. An hour passed by, and still she sat there in a kind of hopeless lethargy. She did not hear a gentle tapping at the door, nor the trying of the latch by some one who could not get in. But a minute later she started and exclaimed when a dark head was suddenly nestled against hers, her cheek kissed by rosy lips, her name whispered lovingly.

"Oh, little Riette!" she cried. "Where did you come from, child? Was the key in the door?"

"No, there was no key," Riette whispered. "You are locked in, ma belle; but never mind. I know my way about Lancilly. I am going home now, and I wanted to see you. They will ask me how you are looking."

Helene blushed and almost laughed. She looked eagerly into the child's face.

"Who will ask you?"

"Papa, of course."

"Ah, yes, he is very kind. What will you say to him?"

Riette looked hard at her and shrugged her slight shoulders.

"I must go," she said. "Kiss me again, ma belle."

"Stop!" Helene held her tight, with her hands on her shoulders. "Do you often see—your cousin—Angelot?"

Riette's face rippled with laughter. "Every day—nearly every hour."

"Why do you laugh?"

"How can I tell? It is my fault, my own wickedness," said Riette, penitently. "Why indeed should I laugh, when you look sad and ill? Can I say any little word to Angelot, ma cousine?"

"Tell him I must see him—I must speak to him. Tell him to fix the place and the hour."

"And you a prisoner?"

"Yes—but how did you get in? That way I can get out—Riette—Riette!"

"Precisely. Adieu! they are calling me."

The child was gone. Helene, standing in the deep recess in the window, now came forward and looked round wonderingly. The old tapestried walls surrounded her; ancient scenes of hunting and dancing which at first had troubled her sleep. There was no visible exit from the room, except the locked door. But Riette was gone, and the message with her. Was she a real child, or only a comforting dream?



CHAPTER XVI

HOW ANGELOT PLAYED THE PART OF AN OWL IN AN IVY-BUSH

That night, while Helene sat alone and in disgrace, her lover was dancing.

After dinner Riette persuaded her father to walk across with her to La Mariniere, where they found Monsieur Urbain, his wife and son, spending the evening in their usual sober fashion; he, deep in vintage matters, still studying his friend De Serres, and arguing various points with Angelot whose day had been passed with Joubard in the vineyards; she, working at her frame, where a very rococo shepherd and shepherdess under a tree had almost reached perfection.

Madame de la Mariniere had views of her own about little girls, and considered Riette by no means a model. She had tried to impress her ideas on Monsieur Joseph, but though he smiled and listened admiringly, he spoiled Riette all the more. So her Aunt Anne reluctantly gave her up. But still, in her rather severe way, she was kind to the child, and Riette, though a little shy and on her good behaviour, was not afraid of her. There was always a basket beside Aunt Anne, of clothes she was making for the poor, for her tapestry was only an evening amusement. In this basket there was a little white cap such as the peasant children wore, partly embroidered in white thread. This was Riette's special work, whenever she came to La Mariniere. Sitting on a footstool beside her aunt, she stitched away at "le bonnet de la petite Lise." At her rate of progress, however, as her aunt pointed out with a melancholy smile, Lise would be a grown-up woman before the cap was finished.

And on this special evening the stitches were both few and crooked. Riette paid no attention to her work, but sat staring and smiling at Angelot across the room, and he, instead of talking to his father and uncle, watched her keenly under his eyelids. Presently he came and stood near his mother's chair while she asked Riette a few questions about her lessons that day. It appeared that all had been satisfactory.

"A good little woman, Mademoiselle Moineau," said Riette, softly, smiling at Angelot, who felt the colour mounting to his hair. "I like her very much. She pretends to scold, but there is no malice in it, you know. I don't think she is very clever. Quite clever enough for Sophie and Lucie, who are most amiable, poor dear children, but stupid—ah!"

"They are older than you, I believe, Henriette," said her aunt, reprovingly.

"Yes, dear aunt, in years, but not in experience. I have lived, I know life"—she nodded gently—"while those poor girls—Ah, how charming! May I have a little dance with Ange, Aunt Anne?"

"I suppose so. Lise will not have her cap yet, it seems," said Madame de la Mariniere, smiling in spite of herself.

Monsieur Joseph had sat down to the piano and was playing a lively polka. Angelot started up, seized his little cousin, and whirled her off down the room. In a minute or two Urbain took off his spectacles, shut the Theatre d'Agriculture with a sharp clap, walked up to Anne and held out his hands with a smiling bow.

"I can't resist Joseph's music, if you can, my little lady!"

"It seems we must follow the children," she said. "Riette has just been pointing out that she, at least, is wiser than her elders."

Angelot and his father jumped their light partners up and down with all the merry energy of France and a new world. After a few turns, Angelot waltzed Riette out into the hall, and they stood still for a few moments under the porch, while she whispered Helene's message into his ear.

"Mon Dieu! But how can she meet me? It must be at night, or they will see us. And if she is locked into her room?"

"She can get out of her room, mon petit! She knows there is a way, though I have not shown it to her. Then there is the secret staircase in the chapel wall."

"You are right, glorious child that you are. She will find me in the moat, close to the little door. Nothing can be safer, provided that no one misses her."

"At what time?"

"Nine o'clock, when they are all playing cards."

"I will tell her," said Riette. "Oh, my Ange! she looked so sweet when she talked of you. I think I love her as much as you do. Why don't you bring her to Les Chouettes, that we may take care of her? There is an idea. Take her to Monsieur le Cure to-morrow night. He will be gone to bed, but no matter. Make him get up and marry you. Then come and live at Les Chouettes, both of you. We have plenty of room, and little papa would not be angry."

"Hush, child, what things you say!"

The very thoughts were maddening, there in the dim darkness under the stairs, with glimmering points of distant earthly light from Lancilly on the opposite hill. One of them might be Helene's window, where she sat and watched La Mariniere.

The music in the old room behind went swinging on. Monsieur Joseph played with immense spirit; Monsieur and Madame Urbain danced merrily up and down.

"Allons! we must go back," Angelot whispered to his little cousin, whose arms were round his neck. "And then you must dance with your uncle, because my mother likes a turn with me."

One cold touch of reflection came to dim his happiness. He had promised Uncle Joseph not to make Henriette a go-between. And it seemed no real excuse that it was Helene's doing, not his. Well, this once it could not be helped. All the promises in the world would not make him disobey Helene or disappoint her.

For the present, it seemed as if the attraction between himself and Helene, a rapture to both of them, still meant very real misery to her. She was in deep disgrace with Madame de Sainfoy. Although she was allowed to come down to the meals, at which she sat statue-like and silent, she was sent back at once to her room, and either her mother or Mademoiselle Moineau locked her in.

Her father noticed these proceedings and shrugged his shoulders. He was sorry for Helene, but had learnt by experience not to interfere, except on great and necessary occasions. No doubt girls were sometimes troublesome, and he did not pretend to know how to manage them. Adelaide must bring up her children in her own way.

Another day of almost entire solitude, with a terrible doubt of Angelot added to the longing for his presence, so that peace was no longer to be found in the distant sight of La Mariniere; another day had dragged its length through the hot hours of the afternoon, when, as Helene walked restlessly up and down in her room, the blue-green depths of a grove on her tapestried wall began to move, and out from the wall itself, as if to join the dancing peasants beyond the grove, came the slender little figure of Henriette. In an instant the panel of tapestry had closed behind her and she had sprung into Helene's arms. The girl clutched her convulsively.

"What does he say?"

"To-night, at nine o'clock, he will be near the little door in the moat. Meet him there."

"The little door in the moat!"

"You see this. Let me show you the spring"—she dragged her to the wall, and opened the panel with a touch. Inside it there was a dark and narrow passage, but opposite another panel stood slightly ajar.

"That is the way into the chapel," Riette whispered. "I came that way. But you must turn to the right, and almost directly you will find the stairs. The door is at the foot of them. He will be there."

"It is unlocked?"

"There is no key. I believe there has been none for centuries. Adieu, my pretty angel. They will miss me; I must go. I told them I wanted to say a little prayer to Our Lady in the chapel. She often helped me when I used to play here."

"I hope she will help me, too!" murmured Helene.

In another moment she was terrified at finding herself alone in the dark; for the child was gone, softly closing the secret door into the chapel. Helene felt about for a minute or two before she could find the spring behind the tapestry, and stepped back into her room, shivering from the damp chill of the passage.

It seemed like an extraordinary fate that that night her mother kept her downstairs at needlework later than usual. It was in truth a slight mark of returning favour. Madame de Sainfoy was in a better temper, and realised that it might be unwise to treat a tall girl of nineteen quite like a disobedient child. So Helene sat there stitching beside Mademoiselle Moineau, who was sometimes called upon to take a hand at cards. To-night this did not seem likely, for Urbain de la Mariniere came in after dinner, and the snuffy, sharp-faced little Cure of Lancilly was there too. Madame de Sainfoy had asked him to dine that day, partly to show herself superior to family prejudices; for this little man, unlike the venerable Cure of La Mariniere, was one of the Constitutional priests of the Republic.

Flushing crimson, and feeling, as she well might, like a heroine of romance, Helene heard the new Paris clock strike nine. Its measured, silvery tones had not died away, when she was by her mother's side at the card-table, timidly asking leave to go to her room.

Madame de Sainfoy had just glanced at her hand and found it an excellent one.

"Yes, my child, certainly," she said absently, and gave Helene her free hand.

The girl touched it with her lips, and then her mother's fingers lightly patted her cheek.

"How feverish you are!" Adelaide murmured, but took no further notice, absorbed in her game.

"Like a little flame! but it is a hot night," said Herve as his daughter kissed him.

Mademoiselle Moineau was following Helene from the room, when she was called back.

"No, mademoiselle, you must stay; we cannot do without you. Monsieur le Cure has to be home before ten o'clock."

The governess went back obediently to her corner. Helene glanced back from the door at the group round the table, deep in their calculations, careless of what might be going on outside their circle of shaded candle-light. Only her father lifted his head and looked after her for an instant; her presence or absence was totally indifferent to the other men, though the square-headed cousin Urbain was Angelot's father; and her mother had forgotten her already.

Carrying her light, Helene went with quick and trembling steps through the house to the north wing. As she entered the last passage, she met the maid who had been waiting on Sophie and Lucie, and who slept in the room next her own.

"Mademoiselle wants me?" said Jeanne, a little disappointed; she had hoped for half-an-hour's freedom.

"No, no, I do not want you," Helene answered quickly. "I have things to do—you can stay till Mademoiselle Moineau comes up."

Jeanne went on her way rejoicing.

Helene, once in her own room, locked the door inside, took a large black lace scarf and threw it over her head, hiding her white dress with it as much as possible; then, still carrying her candle, touched the mysterious tapestry door, that door which seemed to lead into old-time woods, into happy, romantic worlds far away, and stepped through into the passage in the thickness of the wall.

Almost instantly she came to the topmost step of the staircase. Black with dust and cobwebs, damp, with slimy snail-tracks on the stones, it went winding down to the lowest story of the old house. The steps were worn and irregular. Long ago they had been built, for this was the most ancient part of the chateau. In their first days the stairs had not ended with the moat, then full of water, but had gone lower still, leading to a passage under the moat that communicated with the open country. There were many such underground ways in the war-worn old province. But when Lancilly was restored and the moat drained, in the seventeenth century, the lower stairs and passage were blocked up, and the present door was made, opening on the green grass and bushes that grew at the bottom of the old moat.

Helene went down the steep and narrow stairs as quickly as her trembling limbs would carry her. They seemed endless; but at last the light fell on a low, heavy door, deep set in the immense foundation wall. She seized the large rusty latch and lifted it without difficulty. Then she pulled gently; no result; she pushed hard, thinking the door must open outwards; it did not move. She set down her light on the stairs, and tried again with both hands; but the door was immovable. As her brain became a little steadier, and her eyes more accustomed to the dimness, she saw that a heavy iron bar was fastened across the upper panels of the door, and run into two enormous staples on the wall at each side. She touched the bar, tried to move it, but found her hands absolutely useless; it would have been a heavy task for a strong man. She stood and looked at the door, shivering with terror and distress. After all, it seemed, she was a real prisoner. She could not keep her appointment with Angelot. She gave a stifled cry and threw herself against the door, beating it with her fists and bruising them. Then a voice spoke outside, low and quickly.

"Helene!"

"Ah! you are there!" she said, and leaned her head against the door.

"Open then, dearest—don't be afraid. Lift the latch, and pull it towards you. There is only a keyhole on this side—but it can't be locked, for there is no key."

"I cannot," she said. "It is barred with a great iron bar. I cannot move it. Oh, how unhappy I am! Why should I be so unfortunate, so miserable?" she cried, and beat upon the door again.

"Ah, mon Dieu! My father's precautions! He went round the chateau six weeks ago, to examine all the doors. I was not with him, or I should have known it. Helene! Will you do as I ask you?"

"Ah! there is nothing to be done. I had to speak to you—I cannot, with this dreadful door between us, and—Ah, heavens, something has put out my candle. I am in the dark! What shall I do!"

"Courage, courage!" he said, speaking close to the keyhole. "Go back up the stairs; go to the chapel window!"

"But I cannot speak to you from the window!"

"Yes, you can—you shall."

"But I am in the dark!"

"You cannot miss your way. Go—go quickly—we have not much time—it is late already."

"I could not help it," sighed Helene.

She was almost angry with him, and for a moment she was sorry she had sent him any message.

"What is the use? How can I speak to him from the window? it is too high," she said to herself as she stumbled up the stairs, shuddering as her fingers touched the damp wall. "It is my fate—I am never to be happy. My mother knows she can do as she likes with me."

A sob rose in her throat, and burning tears blinded her. But she dashed them away when she reached the level, and saw the thin line of light which showed the entrance into her own room, where she had left a candle burning. The opposite panel flew open as she touched it; she stooped and crept into the chapel.

It was dark, cold, and lonely; no friendly red light in the seldom-used little sanctuary; but the window in the north wall was unshuttered, and let in the pale glimmer of a sky lit by stars. Helene had no difficulty in opening the window, though its rusty hinges groaned. There was a quick, loud rustling in the ivy beneath. Helene stepped back with a slight scream as a hand shot suddenly up and caught the sill; in another instant Angelot had climbed to the level of the window and dropped on the brick floor. Helene was almost in his arms, but she drew back and motioned him away, remembering just in time that she was angry.

"What is it?" he said quickly. "Why—"

"How—how did you get here?" she stammered. "I thought you were down in the moat."

"It is not the first time I have climbed the ivy, as the owls might tell you," he said. "It is easy; the old trunk is as thick as my body, and twists like a ladder. Helene! You are angry with me! What have I done?"

He tried to take her hand, but she drew it from him. He fell on his knees and kissed the hem of her gown.

"Helene!"

She stood motionless, unable to speak. But Angelot was not long to be treated in this chilling fashion. It seemed that he had a good conscience, and was not afraid to account for any of his actions. He rose to his feet; no words passed between them; but Helene resisted him no longer. Her head was leaning on his breast; a long, happy sigh escaped her; and it was between kisses that he asked her again, "Why are you angry with me?"

"I am not—not now—I know it is not true," she murmured.

"What, my beloved?"

"You do care for me?"

Angelot laughed. Indeed it did not seem necessary to reassure her on such a point.

"Because, if you give me up, I shall die," she said. "I should have died, I think, if I had not seen you to-night. Now they may say and do what they please."

"What have they been saying and doing? Ah, my sweet, how have they been tormenting you? You are no happier than when I saw you first, though I love you so. How you tremble! Sit down here—there, softly—you are quite safe. What in God's name are we to do? Must I leave you again with these people?"

For a few minutes they sat in a corner of an old carved bench under the window, one of the family seats in those more religious days when grandfathers and grandmothers came to the chapel to pray. Helene leaned against Angelot, clinging to him, and past his dark profile, dimly visible in the twilight of stars, she could see the roughly carved and painted figure of Our Lady, brought from a Spanish convent and much venerated by that Mademoiselle de Sainfoy who became a Carmelite in the early days of the order. Helene had fancied, before now, that there was something motherly in the smile of the statue, neglected so long. She thought, even as her lover kissed her, that neither the Blessed Virgin, nor St. Theresa, nor the ancestor who was her disciple, would have been angry with her and Angelot. Only her own mother, and she for worldly reasons alone, would find any sin in this sweet human love which wrapped her round, which, if allowed to have its way, would shield her from all the miseries of life and keep her in the rapturous peace she enjoyed in this moment, this fleeting moment, which she could not spoil even by telling her Angelot why she sent for him.

"Ah, how I wanted you!" she breathed in his ear.

"My love! But what—what are we to do!" he murmured passionately; her feelings of rest and peace and safety were not for him.

"Your father is very good, and loves you," he said. "At least we know that he will not have you sacrificed. I will ask him. If he refuses—then, mille tonnerres, I will carry you off into the woods, Helene."

"It is no use asking him, dearest, none," she said. "Besides, you told them all that you did not care for me."

She lifted her head, and tried to look into his face.

"Ah, did they tell you that? Was that why you were angry?" Angelot cried.

"Yes," she said; "and now you had better ask to be forgiven."

Indeed, as they both knew too well, there were more serious things than kisses and loving words to occupy that stolen half-hour. They had to tell each other all—all they knew—and each became a little wiser. Helene knew that General Ratoneau had actually asked for her, and that her father had refused to listen; thus realising that her mother was deceiving her, and also that for some hidden reason the plan seemed to Madame de Sainfoy still possible. Angelot, even as they sat there together, realised vividly that he was living in a fool's paradise; that his love's confession to her mother had made things incalculably worse, justifying all the stern treatment, the violent means, which such a mother might think necessary.

"She means to marry her to Ratoneau," he thought, "and she will do it, unless Heaven interferes by a miracle. Uncle Joseph is my only friend, and he cannot help me—at least—if I do not act at once, we are lost."

He lifted Helene's fair head a little, and its pale beauty, in the dim gleam from the open window, seemed to fill his whole being as he gazed. He drew her towards him and kissed her again and again; it might have been a last embrace, a last good-bye, but he did not mean it for that.

"Will you come with me now?" he said.

"Yes!" Helene said faintly.

"Are you afraid?"

"No"—she hesitated—"not with you. I can be brave when I am with you—but when you are not here—"

"They shall not part us again," Angelot said.

"But how are we to get out?"

Though her lover was there, still holding her, the girl trembled as she asked the question.

"I can unbar the door," he said. "Come to the top of the stairs and wait there till I whistle; then come down to me."

This seemed enough for the moment, and the wild fellow had no further plan at all. To have her outside these prison walls, in the free air he loved, under the trees in the starlight, to make a right to her, as he vaguely thought, by running off with her in this fashion—that was all that concerned him at the moment. Where was he to take her? Would Uncle Joseph receive them? Such thoughts just flashed through the tumult of his brain, but seemed of no present importance. Angelot was mad that night, mad with love of his cousin, with the desperate necessity which needed to be met by desperate daring.

Helene followed him, trembling very much, to the top of the stairs.

"You have a candle there? Fetch it for me," he said.

She obeyed him, slipping through the tapestry into her own room. Once there, she looked round with a wild wonder. Could this be herself—Helene de Sainfoy—about to escape into the wide world with her lover—and empty-handed? She looked down vaguely at her white evening gown and thin shoes, snatched up her watch and chain and a diamond ring, which were lying on the table, and slipped them into her pocket. It was the work of a moment, yet when she carried the candle to Angelot, he was white as death, and stamping with impatience; the flame in his eyes frightened her.

He took the candle without a word and disappeared down the first steep winding of the stairs. His moving shadow danced gigantic on the wall, then was gone. Helene waited in the darkness. Even love and faith, with hope added, were not strong enough to keep her brave and happy during the terrible minutes of lonely waiting there. Her limbs trembled, her heart thumped so that she had to lean for support against the cold damp wall. She bent her head forward, eagerly listening. Why had she not gone down with him? Somebody might hear him whistle. However, no whistle came; only a dull sound of banging, which echoed strangely, alarmingly, up the narrow staircase in the thickness of the wall.

It seemed to Helene that she had waited long and was becoming stupefied with anxiety, when a light flashed suddenly upon her eyes, and she opened them wide; she had never lost the childish fear which made her shut them in the dark. Angelot had leaped up the stairs again and was standing beside her, white and frowning.

"It is impossible," he said, in a hurried whisper. "I cannot move the bar without tools. Come back into the chapel."

He set down the candlestick on the altar step, walked distractedly to the end of the low vaulted room, then back to where she stood gazing at him with a pitiful terror in her eyes.

"What is to be done! Is there no other way!" he said, half to himself. "Mon Dieu, Helene, how beautiful you are! Ah, what is that? Listen!"

His ears, quicker than hers, had caught steps and a rustling sound in the passage that ended at the chapel door.

"Dear—go back to your room," he said. "They must not find you here. We shall meet again—Good-night, my own!"

He was gone. The bewildered girl looked after him silently, and he was across the floor, on the window-sill, disappearing hand over head down his ladder of old twisted ivy stems, before she realised anything. Then, not the least aware that some one was knocking at her bedroom door in the passage, shaking the latch, calling her name, she flew after him to the window and leaned out, crying to him low and wildly, "Angelot, come back, come back! Why did you go? Ah, don't leave me! Help me to climb down, too,—please, please, darling!"

Angelot was out of sight, though not out of hearing. Forty feet of thick ivy and knotted stems, shelter of generations of owls, stretched between the chapel window and the moat's green floor; ivy two centuries old, the happy hunting-ground of many a lad of Lancilly and La Mariniere. But that night, perhaps, the hospitable old tree reached the most romantic point of its history.

Helene stretched down eager hands among the thick leaves.

"Angelot! Angelot!"

She heard nothing but the rustling down below, saw nothing but the thick leaves under the stars, though somebody had opened the chapel door, and though her treacherous candle, throwing a square of light upon the dark trees opposite, showed not only her own imploring shadow, but that of a tall figure stepping up behind her. In another moment her arm was seized in a grasp by no means gentle, and she turned round with a scream to face Madame de Sainfoy.

Her cry might have stopped Angelot in his swift descent and brought him to the window again, but as he neared the ground he saw that some one was waiting for him, some one standing on the flat grass, under the light of such stars as shone down into the moat, gazing with fixed gravity at the window from which Helene was leaning.

Angelot's light spring to the ground brought him within a couple of yards of the motionless figure, and his white face flushed red when he saw that it was Helene's father. The few moments during which he faced Comte Herve silently were the worst his happy young life had ever known. The elder man did not speak till Helene, with that last little cry, had disappeared from the window. Then he looked at Angelot.

"I am sorry, Ange," he said, "for I owe a good deal to your father. But I will ask you to wait here while I fetch my pistols. It is best to settle such a matter on the spot—though you hardly deserve to be so well treated."

"Monsieur—" Angelot almost choked.

"Ah! Do not trouble yourself to hunt for excuses—there are none," said the Comte.

He was moving off, but Angelot threw himself in his way.

"Bring one pistol," he said. "One will be enough, for I cannot fight you—you know it. But you may kill me if it pleases you."

Herve shrugged his shoulders.

"How long has this been going on? How many times have you met my daughter clandestinely? Does it seem to you the behaviour of a gentleman? On my soul, you deserve to be shot down like a dog, as you say!"

"No, monsieur," Angelot said quickly, "I give you leave to do it, for I see now that life must be misery. But I have done no such harm as to deserve to be shot! No! I love and adore my cousin, and you must have known it—every one knows it, I should think. Can I sit quietly at home while her family gives her the choice between General Ratoneau and a convent? No, I confess it is more than I can bear."

"And if her family had given her such a choice—which is false, by the bye—what could you do? Is it likely that they would change their minds and give her to you, as your uncle Joseph suggested? And would you expect to gain their favour by this sort of thing?" He pointed to the window. "No, young man; if you were not your father's son, my grooms might whip you out of Lancilly, and I should feel justified in giving the order."

Angelot broke into a short laugh. "A pistol-shot is not an insult," he said. "But you are angry."

"And you are Urbain's son," the Comte said.

There was a world of reproach in the words, but little violent anger. The two men stood and looked at each other; and it was not the least strange part of the position that they were still, as they had been all along, mutually attracted. Both natures were open, sweet-tempered, and generous. A certain grace and charm about Herve de Sainfoy drew Angelot, as it had drawn his father. The touch of romance in Angelot, his beauty, his bold, defiant air, took Herve's fancy.

"You climb like a monkey or a sailor," he said. "But you tried another exit, did you not? Was it you who was hammering at the door down there?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Tell me all."

The questions were severe, but Angelot answered them frankly and truly, as far as he could do so and take the whole blame upon himself.

"It was I," he said; "I did the whole wrong, if it was wrong. Do not let madame her mother be angry with her. But for God's sake do not make her marry Ratoneau. She is timid, she is delicate—ah, monsieur—and we are cousins, after all—"

There was a break in his voice, and the Comte almost smiled.

"You are a pair of very absurd and troublesome children," he said, much more kindly. "But you are old enough to know better; it is ignorance of the world to think that lives can be arranged to suit private inclinations. I could not give you my daughter, even if I wished it; you ought to see, as your father would, that you are not in a position to expect such a wife. You are not even on my side in politics, though you very well might be. If you were in the army, with even the prospect of distinguishing yourself like General Ratoneau—and why not even now—"

It was a tremendous temptation, but only for a moment. Angelot thought of his mother and of his uncle Joseph.

"I cannot go into the army," he said quickly.

"No—you are a Chouan at heart, I know," said Herve.

He added presently, as the young man stood silent and doubtful before him—"You will give me your word of honour, Angelot, that there is no more of this—that you do not attempt to see my daughter again."

Angelot answered him, after a moment's pause, "I warn you that I shall break my word, if I hear more of Ratoneau."

"The devil take Ratoneau!" replied his cousin. "You will give me your word, and I will give you mine. I will never consent to such a marriage as that for Helene. Are you satisfied now?"

"You give me life and hope," said Angelot.

"Not at all. It is not for your sake, I assure you."

Angelot's poor love went to bed that night in a passion of tears. The time came for her to know and confess that Angelot's father, when he barred the postern door, might have had more than one guardian angel behind him; but that time was not yet.



CHAPTER XVII

HOW TWO SOLDIERS CAME HOME FROM SPAIN

The family scandal was great. Angelot, if he had ever thought about such possibilities at all, would never have imagined that his relations could be so angry with him; and this without exception. Monsieur de Sainfoy, the most entirely justified, was by far the gentlest. Madame de Sainfoy's flame of furious wrath enveloped every one. She refused at first even to see Monsieur Urbain; she vowed that she would leave Lancilly at once, take Helene back to Paris, let the odious old place fall back into the ruin from which she wished it had never been rescued, shake herself and her children free from the contact of these low, insolent cousins who presumed so far on their position, on the gratitude that might be supposed due to them. Urbain, however, having stuck to his point and obtained a private interview with her, in which he promised that his son should be sent away, or at least should annoy her no more, her tone became a little milder and she did not insist on breaking up the establishment. After all, Urbain pointed out, Tout va bien! It was to be expected that an imperial order would very soon decide Helene's future and check for ever young Angelot's ambition. Madame de Sainfoy perceived that it was worth while to wait.

In the meantime, the philosopher's nature was stirred to its depths. If it had not been for his wife's strong opposition, he would have insisted on Angelot's accepting one of those commissions which Napoleon was always ready to give to young men of good family, sometimes indeed, when the family was known to be strongly Royalist, making them sub-lieutenants in spite of themselves and throwing them into prison if they refused to serve. Anne would not have it. She was as angry with Angelot as any one. That he should not only have been taken captive, soul and body, by Lancilly, but should have put himself so hopelessly in the wrong, filled her with rage and grief. But she would not have matters made worse by committing her boy to the Empire. She would rather, as Monsieur Joseph suggested, pack him off across the frontier to join the army of the Princes. But then, again, his father would never consent to that.

"Why do they not send the girl away!" she cried. "Why not send her to a Paris convent till they find a husband for her! We do not want her here, with that pale face and those tragic eyes of hers, making havoc of our young men. I respect Herve for refusing that horrible General, but why does he not take means to find some one else! They are beyond my understanding, Herve and Adelaide. I wish they had never come back, never brought that girl here to distract my Angelot. He was free and happy till they came. Ah, mon Dieu! how they make me suffer, these people!"

"Do not blame them for Angelot's dishonourable weakness," said her husband, sternly. "If your son had possessed reason and self-control, which I have tried in vain all my life to teach him, none of all this need have happened. There is no excuse for him."

"I am making none. I am very angry with him. I am not blaming your dear Sainfoys. I only say that if they had never come, or if Providence had given them an ugly daughter, this could not have happened. You will not try to deny that, I suppose!"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Your logic is faultless, my dear Anne. If you had not married me, there would have been no handsome boy to fall in love with a pretty girl. And if La Mariniere had not been near Lancilly—"

"Are you ever serious?" she said, and swept out of the room.

His strong face was grave enough as he looked after her.

But in Angelot's presence there was no such philosophical trifling. He was made to feel himself in deep disgrace with both his parents, and he was young enough to feel it very keenly. After the first tremendous scolding, they hardly spoke to him; he went in and out in a gloomy silence most strange to the sunny life of La Mariniere. And at Les Chouettes it was no better.

In truth, Angelot found his uncle Joseph's deep displeasure harder to bear than that of any one else. There was something clandestine about the affair which touched the little gentleman's sense of honour; his code of manners and good breeding was also offended. He knew life; his own younger days had been stormy; and even now, though respecting morality, he was not strict or narrow. But such adventures as this of Angelot's seemed to him on a lower plane of society than belonged to Lancilly or La Mariniere. A secret meeting at night; climbing ivy like a thief; making use of his familiarity with the old house to do what, after all, was an injury as well as an offence to its owners,—all this was matter of deep disgust to Monsieur Joseph.

"I thought Ange was a gentleman!" he said; and to Henriette, who with bitter tears confessed to him her part in the story, he would not even admire the daring spirit in which he and she had often rejoiced together.

"Helene's fault, you say, child? No, we will not make that excuse for him. If the poor girl was unhappy, there were other ways—"

"But what could he have done, papa? Now you are very unkind. If she asked him to come, could he have said no? Is that the way for a gentleman to treat a lady?"

Riette had posed him, and she knew it. But she did not reap any personal advantage.

"As to that," he said, "the whole thing was your fault. I did not send you to Lancilly to carry messages, but to learn your lessons. What did it matter to you if your cousin Helene was unhappy? In this world we must all be unhappy sometimes, as you will find. Go to bed at once. Consider yourself in disgrace. You will stay in your room for two days on bread and water, and you will not go to Lancilly again for a long time, perhaps never. I am sorry I ever sent you there, but in future Mademoiselle Helene's affairs will be arranged without you."

Riette went obediently away, shaking her head. As she went upstairs she heard her father calling to Marie Gigot, giving severe commands in a nervous voice, and she smiled faintly through her tears.

"Nevertheless, little papa, we love our Ange, you and I!" she said.

Angelot wandered about solitary with his gun and Nego, avoiding the Lancilly side of the country, and keeping to his father's and his uncle's land, where game abounded. For the present his good spirits were effectually crushed; and yet, even now, his native hopefulness rose and comforted him. It was true every one was angry; it was true he had given his word of honour not to attempt to see Helene, and at any moment her future might be decided without him; but on the other hand, her father had promised that she should not marry Ratoneau; and he and she, they were both young, they loved each other; somehow, some day, the future could hardly fail to be theirs.

In the meantime, Angelot was better off among his woods and moorlands than Helene in her locked room, all the old labyrinths and secret ways discovered and stopped. The vintage was very near, for the last days of September had come. Again a young moon was rising over the country, for the moon which lighted Helene to La Mariniere on her first evening in Anjou had waned and gone. And the heather had faded, the woods and copses began to be tinted with bronze, to droop after the long, hot season, only broken by two or three thunderstorms. The evenings were drawing in, the mornings began to be chilly; autumn, even lovelier than summer in that climate which has the seasons of the poets, was giving a new freshness to the air and a new colour to the landscape.

One day towards evening Angelot visited La Joubardiere. He went to the farm a good deal at this time, for it was pleasant to see faces that did not frown upon him, but smiled a constant welcome, and there was always the excuse of talking to Joubard about the vintage. And again, this evening, the Maitresse brought out a bottle of her best wine, and the two old people talked of their son at the war; and all the time they were very well aware that something was wrong with Monsieur Angelot, whom they had known and loved from his cradle. The good wife's eyes twinkled a little as she watched him, and if nothing had happened later to distract her thoughts, she would have told her husband that the boy was in love. Joubard put down the young master's strange looks to anxiety, not unfounded, about his uncle Joseph and the Chouan gentlemen. Since Simon's spying and questioning, Joubard had taken a more serious view of these matters.

"Monsieur Angelot has been at Les Chouettes to-day?" he said. "No? Ah, perhaps it is as well. There were two gentlemen shooting with Monsieur Joseph—I think they were Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur Cesar d'Ombre. A little dangerous, such company. Monsieur Joseph perhaps thinks a young man is better out of it."

Angelot did not answer, and turned the conversation back to the vintage.

"Yes, I believe it will be magnificent," said the farmer. "If Martin were only here to help me! But it is hard for me, alone, to do my duty by the vines. Hired labour is such a different thing. I believe in the old rhyme:—

'L'ombre du bon maitre Fait la vigne croitre!'

Monsieur your father explained to me the meaning of it, that there must be no trees in or near the vineyard, no shadow but that of the master. He found that in a book, he said. Surely, I thought, a man must have plenty of time on his hands, to write a book to prove what every child knows. Now I take its meaning to be deeper than that. There is a shadow the vine needs and can't do without. You may talk as you please about sun and air and showers; 'tis the master's eye and hand and shadow that gives growth and health to the vines."

"Don't forget the good God," said Maitresse Joubard. "All the shadows of the best masters won't do much without Him."

"Did I say so?" Her husband turned upon her. "It is His will, I suppose, that things are so. We must take His creation as we find it. All I say is, He gives me too much to do, when He sets me on a farm with five sons and leaves me there but takes them all away."

"Hush, hush, master; Martin will come back," his wife said.

Nearly a month ago she had said the same. Angelot, standing again in the low dark kitchen with her slender old glass in his hand, remembered the day vividly, for it had indeed been a marked day in his life. The breakfast at Les Chouettes, the hidden Chouans, General Ratoneau and his adventure in the lane, and then the wonderful moonlight evening, the coming of Helene, the dreams which all that night waited upon her and had filled all the following days. Yes; it was on that glorious morning that Maitresse Joubard, poor soul, had talked with so much faith and courage of her Martin's return. And Angelot, for his part, though he would not for worlds have said so, saw no hope of it at all. The last letter from Martin had come many months ago. The poor conscript, the young Angevin peasant, tall like his father, with his mother's quiet, dark face, was probably lying heaped and hidden among other dead conscripts at the foot of some Spanish fortress wall.

Angelot set down his glass, took up his gun, looked vaguely out of the door into the misty evening, bright with the spiritual brilliance of the young moon.

"If Martin comes back, anything is possible," he was thinking. "I should believe then that all would go well with me."

From the white, ruinous archway that opened on the lane, a figure hobbled slowly forward across the gleams and shadows of the yard. The great dog chained there began to yelp and cry; it was not the voice with which he received a stranger; Nego growled at his master's feet.

Angelot's gaze became fixed and intent. The figure looked like one of those wandering beggars, those chemineaux, who tramped the roads of France with a bag to collect bones and crusts of bread, the scraps of food which no good Christian refused them, who haunted the lonely farms at night and to whom a stray lamb or kid or chicken never came amiss. This figure was ragged like them; it stooped, and limped upon a wooden leg and a stick; an empty sleeve was pinned across its breast. And the rags were those of a soldier's uniform, and the dark, bent face was tanned by hotter suns than the sun of Anjou.

Angelot turned to the old Joubards and tried to speak, but his voice shook and was choked, and the tears blinded his eyes.

"My poor dear friends—" he was beginning, but Joubard started forward suddenly.

"What steps are those in the yard? The dog speaks—ah!"

The old man rushed through the doorway with arms stretched out, wildly sobbing, "Martin, Martin, my boy!"—and clasped the miserable figure in a long embrace.

"Did I not say so, Monsieur Angelot?" the little mother cried; and the young man, with a sudden instinct of joy and reverence, caught her rough hand and kissed it as she went out of the door. "Tell madame she was right," she said.

Angelot called Nego and walked silently away. As he went he heard their cries of welcome, their sobs of grief, and then he heard a hoarse voice ringing, echoed by the old walls all about, and it shouted—"Vive l'Empereur!"

Angelot felt strangely exalted as he walked away. The heroism of the crippled soldier touched him keenly; this was the Empire in a different aspect from any that he yet knew; the opportunism of his father and of Monsieur de Mauves, the bare worldliness of the Sainfoys, the military brutality of Ratoneau. The voice of this poor soldier, wandering back, a helpless, destitute wreck, to end his days in his old home, sounded like the bugle-call of all that generous self-sacrifice, that pure enthusiasm for glory, which rose to follow Napoleon and made his career possible. Angelot felt as if he too could march in such an army. Then as he strode down the moor he heard Herve de Sainfoy's voice again: "And why not even now?" and again he thought of those dearest ones now so angry with him, whose loyalty to old France and her kings was a part of their religion, and whom no present brilliancy of conquest and fame could dazzle or lead astray.

Thinking of these things, Angelot came down from the moor into a narrow lane which skirted it, part of the labyrinth of crossing ways which led from the south to La Mariniere and Lancilly. This lane was joined, some way above, by the road which led across the moor from Les Chouettes. It was not the usual road from the south to Lancilly, but turned out of that a mile or two south, to wander westward round one or two lonely farms like La Joubardiere. It ran deep between banks of stones covered with heather and ling and a wild mass of broom and blackberry bushes, the great round heads of the pollard oaks rising at intervals, so that there were patches of dark shadow, and the road itself was a succession of formidable ruts and holes and enormous stones.

In this thoroughfare two carriages had met, one going down-hill from the moorland road, the other, a heavy post-chaise and pair, climbing from the south. It was impossible for either conveyance to pass the other, and a noisy argument went on, first between the post-boy and the groom who drove the private carriage, a hooded, four-wheeled conveyance of the country, next between the travellers themselves.

Angelot came down from the steep footpath by which he had crossed the moor, just as the occupant of the post-chaise, after shouting angrily from the window, had got out to see the state of things for himself. He was a stranger to Angelot; a tall and very handsome young man of his own age, with a travelling cloak thrown over his showy uniform.

"What the devil is the matter? Why don't you drive on, you fool?" he said to the post-boy, who only gesticulated and pointed hopelessly to the obstacle in front of him.

"Well, but drive through them, or over them, or something," cried the imperious young voice. "Are you going to stop here all night staring at them? What is it? Some kind of diligence? Look here, fellow—you, driver—get out of my way, can't you? Mille tonnerres, what a road! Get down and take your horse out, do you hear? Lead him up the bank, and then drag your machine out of the way. Any one with you? Here is a man; he can help you. Service of the Emperor; no delay."

Apparently he took Angelot, in the dusk, for a country lad going home. Before there was time to show him his mistake, a dark, angry face bent forward from the hooded carriage, and Angelot recognised the Baron d'Ombre, who gave his orders in a tone quite as peremptory, and much haughtier.

"Post-boy! Back your carriage down the hill. You see very well that there is no room to pass here. Pardon, monsieur!" with a slight salute to the officer.

"Pardon!" he responded quickly. "Sorry to derange you, monsieur, but my chaise will not be backed. Service of His Majesty."

"That is nothing to me, monsieur."

"The devil! Who are you then?"

"I will give you my card with pleasure."

Cesar d'Ombre descended hastily from the carriage, while Monsieur des Barres, who was with him, leaned forward rather anxiously.

"Explain the rule of the road to this gentleman," he said. "He is evidently a stranger. I see he has two servants behind the carriage, who can help in backing the horses. Explain that it is no intentional discourtesy, but a simple necessity. The delay will be small."

The tall young stranger bowed in the direction of the voice.

"Merci, monsieur. Your rules of the road do not concern me. I give way to no one—certainly not to your companion, who appears to be disloyal. I had forgotten, for a moment, the character of this country. The dark ages still flourish here, I believe."

The Baron d'Ombre presented his card with a low bow.

"Merci, monsieur. Permit me to return the compliment. But it is almost too dark for you to see my name, which ought to be well known here. De Sainfoy, Captain 13th Chasseurs, at your service. Will you oblige me—"

"It is not necessary at this moment, monsieur. You will not meet me at the Chateau de Lancilly."

"But you may possibly meet me—Vicomte des Barres—for your father and I sometimes put our old acquaintance before politics—" cried the voice from the carriage. "You will be very welcome to your family. But this arranges matters, Monsieur le Capitaine, for you are on the wrong road."

"Sapristi! The wrong road! Why, I picked up a wounded fellow and brought him a few miles. He got down to take a short cut home, and told me the next turn to the right would bring me to Lancilly. He was lying, then? A fellow called Joubard, not of my regiment."

"What do you say?" said d'Ombre to Angelot, who had already greeted him, lingering in the background to see the end of the dispute.

Georges de Sainfoy now first looked at the sportsman standing by the roadside, and Angelot looked at him. Monsieur des Barres, a little stiff from a long day's shooting—for he was not so lithe and active as his host, and not so young as the Baron—now got down from the carriage and joined the group.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Ange," he said kindly. "You have been shooting, I see, but not with your uncle. Have you met before, you two?" He glanced at Georges de Sainfoy, who stared haughtily. Even in the dim dusk Angelot could see that he was wonderfully like his mother.

"No, monsieur," he answered. "Not since twenty years ago, at least, and I think my cousin remembers that time as little as I do."

He spoke carelessly and lightly. De Sainfoy's fine blue eyes considered him coldly, measured his height and breadth and found them wanting.

"Ah! You are a La Mariniere, I suppose?" he said.

"Ange de la Mariniere, at your service."

Georges held out his hand. It was with an oddly unwilling sensation that Angelot gave his. Though the action might be friendly, there was something slighting, something impatient, in the stranger's manner; and the cousins already disliked each other, not yet knowing why.

"Are my family well? Do they expect me?" said Georges de Sainfoy.

"I believe they are very well. I do not know if they expect you," Angelot answered.

"Is it true that this is not the road to Lancilly?"

D'Ombre growled something about military insolence, and Monsieur des Barres laughed.

"Pardon, gentlemen," said De Sainfoy. "I am impatient, I know. A soldier on his way home does not expect to be stopped by etiquettes about passing on the road. My cousin knows the country; I appeal to him, as one of you did just now. Is this the way to Lancilly, or not?"

Angelot laughed. "Yes—and no," he said.

"What do you mean by that? Come, I am in no humour for joking."

Angelot looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

"It is a road, but not the road," he said. "No one in his senses would drive this way to Lancilly. This part of it is bad enough; further on, where it goes down into the valley, it is much worse; I doubt if a heavy carriage could pass. You turned to the right too soon. Martin Joubard forgot this lane, perhaps. He would hardly have directed you this way—unless—"

"Unless what?"

"Unless he wished to show you the nature of the country, in case you should think of invading it in force."

The two Chouans laughed.

"Well said, Angelot!" muttered Cesar d'Ombre.

Georges de Sainfoy, stiff and haughty, did not trouble himself about any jest or earnest concealed under his cousin's speech and the way the neighbours took it. He realised, perhaps, that in this wild west country the name of Napoleon was not altogether one to conjure with, that he had not left the enemies of the Empire behind him in Spain. But he realised, too, that this was hardly the place or the time to assert his own importance and his master's authority.

"Do you mean that this road is utterly impassable?" he said to Angelot. "How then did these gentlemen—"

"They did not come from Lancilly. They drove across the moor from my uncle's house, Les Chouettes, and turned into the lane a few hundred yards higher up. As to impassable—I think your wheels will come off, if you attempt it, and your horses' knees will suffer. Where the ruts are not two feet deep, the bare rock is almost perpendicular."

"Still it is not impassable?"

"Not in a case of necessity. But you will not attempt it."

"And why not?"

"Because on this hill Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur d'Ombre cannot back out of your way, and you can back out of theirs—and must."