about the buildings. Wild plants sometimes find a hold in the damp

niches, and weave a crown of beautiful bluebell flowers about the
carved stone. At this moment the blue buds were unfolding in the fair

saint's eyes. Mlle. Armande loved the charming couple as if they stood
apart from real life; she saw nothing wrong in a married woman's love

for Victurnien; any other woman she would have judged harshly; but in
this case, not to have loved her nephew would have been the

unpardonable sin. Aunts, mothers, and sisters have a code of their own
for nephews and sons and brothers.

Mlle. Armande was in Venice; she saw the lines of fairy palaces that
stand on either side of the Grand Canal; she was sitting in

Victurnien's gondola; he was telling her what happiness it had been to
feel that the Duchess' beautiful hand lay in his own, to know that she

loved him as they floated together on the breast of the amorous Queen
of Italian seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels

know, some one appeared in the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the
sound of his tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the

sands running from Death's hour-glass to be trodden under his unshod
feet. The sound, the sight of a dreadful hopelessness in Chesnel's

face, gave her that painful shock which follows a sudden recall of the
senses when the soul has sent them forth into the world of dreams.

"What is it?" she cried, as if some stab had pierced to her heart.
"All is lost!" said Chesnel. "M. le Comte will bring dishonor upon the

house if we do not set it in order." He held out the bills, and
described the agony of the last few days in a few simple but vigorous

and touching words.
"He is deceiving us! The miserable boy!" cried Mlle. Armande, her

heart swelling as the blood surged back to it in heavy throbs.
"Let us both say mea culpa, mademoiselle," the old lawyer said

stoutly; "we have always allowed him to have his own way; he needed
stern guidance; he could not have it from you with your inexperience

of life; nor from me, for he would not listen to me. He has had no
mother."

"Fate sometimes deals terribly with a noble house in decay," said
Mlle. Armande, with tears in her eyes.

The Marquis came up as she spoke. He had been walking up and down the
garden while he read the letter sent by his son after his return.

Victurnien gave his itinerary from an aristocrat's point of view;
telling how he had been welcomed by the greatest Italian families of

Genoa, Turin, Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. This
flattering reception he owed to his name, he said, and partly,

perhaps, to the Duchess as well. In short, he had made his appearance
magnificently, and as befitted a d'Esgrignon.

"Have you been at your old tricks, Chesnel?" asked the Marquis.
Mlle. Armande made Chesnel an eager sign, dreadful to see. They

understood each other. The poor father, the flower of feudal honor,
must die with all his illusions. A compact of silence and devotion was

ratified between the two noble hearts by a simple inclination of the
head.

"Ah! Chesnel, it was not exactly in this way that the d'Esgrignons
went into Italy at the end of the fourteenth century, when Marshal

Trivulzio, in the service of the King of France, served under a
d'Esgrignon, who had a Bayard too under his orders. Other times, other

pleasures. And, for that matter, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse is at
least the equal of a Marchesa di Spinola."

And, on the strength of his genealogical tree, the old man swung
himself off with a coxcomb's air, as if he himself had once made a

conquest of the Marchesa di Spinola, and still possessed the Duchess
of to-day.

The two companions in unhappiness were left together on the garden
bench, with the same thought for a bond of union. They sat for a long

time, saying little save vague, unmeaning words, watching the father
walk away in his happiness, gesticulating as if he were talking to

himself.
"What will become of him now?" Mlle. Armande asked after a while.

"Du Croisier has sent instructions to the MM. Keller; he is not to be
allowed to draw any more without authorization."

"And there are debts," continued Mlle. Armande.
"I am afraid so."

"If he is left without resources, what will he do?"
"I dare not answer that question to myself."

"But he must be drawn out of that life, he must come back to us, or he
will have nothing left."

"And nothing else left to him," Chesnel said gloomily. But Mlle.
Armande as yet did not and could not understand the full force of

those words.
"Is there any hope of getting him away from that woman, that Duchess?

Perhaps she leads him on."
"He would not stick at a crime to be with her," said Chesnel, trying

to pave the way to an intolerable thought by others less intolerable.
"Crime," repeated Mlle. Armande. "Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would

think of such a thing!" she added, with a withering look; before such
a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. "There is but one

crime that a noble can commit--the crime of high treason; and when he
is beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it is for

kings."
"The times have changed very much," said Chesnel, shaking his head.

Victurnien had thinned his last thin, white hairs. "Our Martyr-King
did not die like the English King Charles."

That thought soothed Mlle. Armande's splendid indignation; a shudder
ran through her; but still she did not realize what Chesnel meant.

"To-morrow we will decide what we must do," she said; "it needs
thought. At the worst, we have our lands."

"Yes," said Chesnel. "You and M. le Marquis own the estate conjointly;
but the larger part of it is yours. You can raise money upon it

without saying a word to him."
The players at whist, reversis, boston, and backgammon noticed that

evening that Mlle. Armande's features, usually so serene and pure,
showed signs of agitation.

"That poor heroic child!" said the old Marquise de Casteran, "she must
be suffering still. A woman never knows what her sacrifices to her

family may cost her."
Next day it was arranged with Chesnel that Mlle. Armande should go to

Paris to snatch her nephew from perdition. If any one could carry off
Victurnien, was it not the woman whose motherly heart yearned over

him? Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse and tell her all. Still, some sort of pretext was

necessary to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At
some cost to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be

thought that she was suffering from a complaint which called for a
consultation of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows

whether the town talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that
something far more than her own reputation was at stake. She set out.

Chesnel brought her his last bag of louis; she took it, without paying
any attention to it, as she took her white capuchine and thread

mittens.
"Generous girl! What grace!" he said, as he put her into the carriage

with her maid, a woman who looked like a gray sister.
Du Croisier had thought out his revenge, as provincials think out

everything. For studying out a question in all its bearings, there are
no folk in this world like savages, peasants, and provincials; and

this is how, when they proceed from thought to action, you find every
contingency provided for from beginning to end. Diplomatists are

children compared with these classes of mammals; they have time before
them, an element which is lacking to those people who are obliged to

think about a great many things, to superintend the progress of all
kinds of schemes, to look forward for all sorts of contingencies in

the wider interests of human affairs. Had de Croisier sounded poor
Victurnien's nature so well, that he foresaw how easily the young