To Diane, the very suggestion became

certainty: she already saw Eutacie's shallow little heart consoled

and her vanity excited by these magnificent prospects, and she

looked forward to the triumph of her own constancy, when Berenger

should find the image so long enshrined in his heart crumble in its

sacred niche.

Yet a little while then would she be patient, even though nearly a

year had passed and still she saw no effect upon her prisoners,

unless, indeed, Philip had drunk of one of her potions by mistake

and his clumsy admiration was the consequence. The two youths went

on exactly in the same manner, without a complaint, without a

request, occupying themselves as best they might--Berenger

courteously attentive recovered his health, and the athletic powers

displayed by the two brothers when wrestling, fencing, or snow-

balling in the courtyard, were the amazement and envy of their

guard. Twice in the course of the winter there had been an alarm of

wolves, and in their eagerness and excitement about this new sport,

they had accepted the Chevalier's offer of taking their parole for

the hunt.

They had then gone forth with a huge posse of villagers,

who beat the woods with their dogs till the beast was aroused from

its lair and driven into the alleys, where waited gentlemen,

gendarmes, and game keepers with their guns. These two chases were

chiefly memorable to Berenger, because in the universal

intermingling of shouting peasants he was able in the first to have

some conversation with Eutacie's faithful protector Martin, who

told him the incidents of her wanderings, with tears in his eyes,

and blessed him for his faith that she was not dead; and in the

second, he actually found himself in the ravine of the Grange du

Temple. No need to ask, every voice was shouting the name, and

though the gendarmes were round him and he durst not speak to

Rotrou, still he could reply with significative earnestness to the

low bow with which the farmer bent to evident certainty that here

was the imprisoned Protestant husband of the poor lady. Berenger

wore his black vizard mask as had been required of him, but the

man's eyes followed him, as though learning by heart the outline of

his tall figure. The object of the Chevalier's journey was, of

course, a secret from the prisoners, who merely felt its effects by

having their meals served to them in their own tower; and when he

returned after about a month's absence though him looking harassed,

aged, and so much out of humour that he could scarcely preserve his

usual politeness. In effect he was greatly chagrined.

'That she is in their hands is certain, the hypocrites!' he said to

his daughter and sister; 'and no less so that they have designs on

her; but I let them know that these could be easily traversed.'

'But where is she, the unhappy apostate child?' said the Abbess.

'They durst not refuse her to you.'

'I tell you they denied all present knowledge of her. The Duke

himself had the face to make as though he never heard of her. He

had no concern with his mother's household and guests forsooth! I

do not believe he has; the poor fellow stands in awe of that

terrible old heretic dragon, and keeps aloof from her as much as he

can. But he is, after all, a beau jeune home; nor should I be

surprised if he were the girl's gay bridegroom by this time, though

I gave him a hint that there was an entanglement about the child's

first marriage which, by French law, would invalidate any other

without a dispensation from the Pope.'

'A hard nut that for a heretic,' laughed the Abbess.

'He acted the ignorant--knew nothing about the young lady; but had

the civility to give me a guide and an escort to go to Quinet. Ma

foi! I believe they were given to hinder me--take me by indirect

roads, make me lose time at chateaux. When I arrived at the grim

old chateau--a true dungeon, precise as a convent--there was the

dame, playing the Queen Jeanne as well as she could, and having the

insolence to tell me that it was true that Madame la Baronne de

Ribaumont, as she was pleased to call her, had honoured her

residence for some months, but that she had now quitted it, and she

flatly refused to answer any question whither she was gone! The

hag! she might at least have had the decorum to deny all knowledge

of her, but nothing is more impertinent that the hypocritical

sincerity of the heretics.'

'But her people,' exclaimed the Abbess; 'surely some of them knew,

and could be brought to speak.'

'All the servants I came in contact with played the incorruptible;

but still I have done something. There were some fellows in the

village who are not at their ease under that rule. I caused my

people to inquire them out. They knew nothing more than that the

old heretic Gardon with his family had gone away in Madame la

Duchesse's litter, but whither they could not tell. But the

cabaretier there is furious secretly with the Quinets for having

spoilt his trade by destroying the shrine at the holy well, and I

have made him understand that it will be for his profit to send me

off intelligence so soon as there is any communication between them

and the lady. I made the same arrangement with a couple of

gendarmes of the escort the Duke gave me. So at least we are safe

for intelligence such as would hinder a marriage.'

'But they will be off to England!' said the Abbess.

'I wager they will again write to make sure of a reception.

Moreover, I have set that fellow Ercole and others of his trade to

keep a strict watch on all the roads leading to the ports, and give

me due notice of their passing thither. We have law on our side,

and, did I once claim her, no one could resist my right. Or should

the war break out, as is probable, then could my son sweep their

whole province with his troops. This time she cannot escape us.

The scene that her father's words and her own imagination conjured

up, of Eustacie attracting the handsome widower-duke, removed all

remaining scruples from Madame de Selinville. For his own sake,

the Baron must be made to fulfil the prophecy of the ink-pool, and

allow his prison doors to be opened by love. Many and many a

tender art did Diane rehearse; numerous were her sighs; wakeful,

languishing, and restless her nights and days; and yet, whatever

her determination to practise upon her cousin the witcheries that

she had learnt in the Escadron de la Reine-mere, and seen played

off effectually where there was not one grain of love to inspire

them, her powers and her courage always failed her in the presence

of him whom she sought to attract. His quiet reserve and

simplicity always disconcerted her, and any attempt at blandishment

that he could not mistake was always treated by him as necessarily

an accidental error, as if any other supposition would render her

despicable; and yet there was now and then a something that made

her detect an effort in his restraint, as if it were less distaste

than self-command. Her brother had contemptuously acquiesced in

the experiment made by herself and her father, and allowed that so

long as there was any danger of the Quinet marriage, the Baron's

existence was needful. He would not come to Nid-de-Merle, nor did

they want him there, knowing that he could hardly have kept his

hands off his rival. But when the war broke out again in the

summer of 1575 he joined that detachment of Guise's army which

hovered about the Loire, and kept watch on the Huguenot cities and

provinces of Western France. The Chevalier made several

expeditions to confer with his son, and to keep up his relations

with the network of spies whom he had spread over the Quinet

provinces. The prisoners were so much separated from all

intercourse with the dependants that they were entirely ignorant of

the object of his absence from home. On these occasions they never

left their tower and its court, and had no enlivenment save an

occasional gift of dainties or message of inquiry from the ladies

at Bellaise. These were brought by a handsome but slight, pale lad

called Aime de Selinville, a relative of the late Count, as he told

them, who had come to act as a gentleman attendant upon the widowed

countess. The brothers rather wondered how he was disposed of at

the convent, but all there was so contrary to their preconceived

notions that they acquiesced. The first time he arrived it was on

a long, hot summer day, and he then brought them a cool iced

sherbet in two separate flasks, that for Philip being mixed with

wine, which was omitted for Berenger; and the youth stood lingering

and watching, anxious, he said, to be able to tell his lady how the

drinks were approved. Both were excellent, and to that effect the

prisoners replied; but no sooner was the messenger gone than

Berenger said smilingly, 'That was a love potion, Phil.'

'And you drank it!' cried Philip, in horror.

'I did not think of it till I saw how the boy's eyes were gazing

curiously at me as I swallowed it. You look at me as curiously,

Phil. Are you expecting it to work? Shall I be at the fair lady's

feet next time we meet?'

'How can you defy it, Berry?'

'Nay, Phil; holy wedded love is not to be dispelled by a

mountebank's decoction.'

'But suppose it were poisonous, Berry, what can be done?' cried

Philip, starting up in dismay.

'Then you would go home, Phil, and this would be over. But'--

seeing his brother's terror--'there is no fear of that. She is not

like to wish to poison me.'

And the potion proved equally ineffective on mind and body, as

indeed did all the manipulations exercised upon a little waxen

image that was supposed to represent M. le Baron. Another figure

was offered to Diane, in feminine form, with black beads for eyes

and a black plaster for hair, which, when stuck full of pins and

roasted before the fire, was to cause Eustacie to peak and pine

correspondingly. But from this measure Diane shrank. If aught was

done against her rival it must be by her father and brother, not by

herself; and she would not feel herself directly injuring her

little cousin, nor sinking herself below him whom she loved. Once

his wife, she would be good for ever, held up by his strength.

Meantime Berenger had received a greater shock than she or her

father understood in the looking over of some of the family

parchments kept in store at the castle. The Chevalier, in showing

them to him, had chiefly desired to glorify the family by

demonstrating how its honours had been won, but Berenger was

startled at finding that Nid-de-Merle had been, as it appeared to

him, arbitrarily and unjustly declared to be forfeited by the Sieur

de Bellaise, who had been thrown into prison by Louis XI. for some

demonstration in favour of the poor Duke de Berri, and granted to

the favourite Ribaumont. The original grant was there, and to his

surprise he found it was to male heirs--the male heirs alone of the

direct line of the Ribaumont--to whom the grant was made. How,

then, came it to Eustacie? The disposal had, with almost equal

injustice, been changed by King Henry II. and the late Count de

Ribaumont in favour of the little daughter whose union with the

heir of the elder line was to conclude all family feuds. Only now

did Berenger understand what his father had said on his death-bed

of flagrant injustice committed in his days of darkness. He felt

that he was reaping the reward of the injuries committed against

the Chevalier and his son on behalf of the two unconscious

children. He would willingly at once have given up all claim to

the Nid-de-Merle estate--and he was now of age; two birthdays had

passed in his captivity and brought him to years of discretion--but

he had no more power than before to dispose of what was the

property of Eustacie and her child; and the whole question of the

validity of his marriage would be given up by his yielding even the

posthumous claim that might have devolved on him in case of

Eustacie's death. This would be giving up her honour, a thing

impossible.

'Alas!' he sighed, 'my poor father might well say he had bound a

heavy burthen round my neck.'

And from that time his hopes sank lower as the sense of the justice

of his cause left him. He could neither deny his religion nor his

marriage, and therefore could do nothing for his own deliverance;

and he knew himself to be suffering in the cause of a great

injustice; indeed, to be bringing suffering on the still more

innocent Philip.

The once proudly indifferent youth was flagging now; was losing

appetite, flesh, and colour; was unwilling to talk or to take

exercise; and had a wan and drooping air that was most painful to

watch. It seemed as if the return of summer brought a sense of the

length and weariness of the captivity, and that the sunshine and

gaiety of the landscape had become such a contrast to the captives'

deadness of spirit that they could hardly bear to behold them, and

felt the dull prison walls more congenial to their feelings than

the gaiety of the summer hay and harvest-fields.




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