The pastor and his daughter were placed under the special

protection of Captain Falconnet, and the steward had taken care

that they should be well lodged in three rooms that had once been

the abbot's apartments. Their stay had been at first intended to

be short, but the long journey had been so full of suffering to

Isaac, and left such serious effects, that Eustacie could not bear

to undertake it again, and Madame de Quinet soon perceived that she

was safer there than at the chateau, since strangers were seldom

admitted to the fortress, and her presence there attracted no

attention. But for Isaac Gardon's declining health, Eustacie would

have been much happier here than at the chateau; the homely

housewifely life, where all depended on her, suited her; and, using

her lessons in domestic arts of nursing and medicine for the

benefit of her father's flock, she had found, to her dismay, that

the simple people, in their veneration, had made her into a sort of

successor to the patroness of the convent. Isaac had revived

enough for a time to be able to conduct the worship in the church,

and to instruct some his flock; but the teaching of the young had

been more and more transferred to her, and, as he ingenuously said,

had taught her more than she ever knew before. He gradually became

weaker through more suffering, and was absolutely incapable of

removal, when an attack by the Guisards was threatened. Eustacie

might have been sent back to Quinet; but she would not hear of

leaving him; and this first had been a mere slight attack, as if a

mere experiment on the strength of the place. She had, however,

then had to take the lead in controlling the women, and teaching

them to act as nurses, and to carry out provisions; and she must

then have been seen by some one, who reported her presence there to

Narcisse--perhaps by the Italian pedlar. Indeed Humfrey, who came

in for a moment to receive his master's orders, report his watch,

and greet his lady, narrated, on the authority of the lately

enlisted men-at-arms, that M. de Nid de Merle had promised twenty

crowns to any one who might shoot down the heretics' little white

diablesse.

About six weeks had elapsed since the first attack on Pont de

Dronne, and in that time Gardon had sunk rapidly. He died as he

lived, a gentle, patient man, not a characteristic Calvinist,

though his lot had been thrown with that party in his perplexed

life of truth-seeking and disappointment in the aspirations and

hopes of early youth. He had been, however, full of peace and

trust that he should open his eyes where the light was clear, and

no cloud on either side would mar his perception; and his

thankfulness had been great for the blessing that his almost

heaven-sent daughter had been to him in his loneliness,

bereavement, and decay. Much as he loved her, he did not show

himself grieved or distressed on her account; but, as he told her,

he took the summons to leave her as a sign that his task was done,

and the term of her trials ended. 'I trust as fully,' he said,

'that thou wilt soon be in safe and loving hands, as though I could

commit thee to them.' And so he died in her arms, leaving her a far fuller measure of

blessing and of love than ever she had derived from her own father;

and as the enemy's trumpets were already sounding on the hills, she

had feared insult to his remains, and had procured his almost

immediate burial in the cloister, bidding the assistants sing, as

his farewell, that evening psalm which had first brought soothing

to her hunted spirit.




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