The answer from M. de Biron contained flat discouragement. In his words seemed to lurk a smile at the simplicity of Luc: there were no places at Court or even in obscure corners of France that were not already allotted, long before they were vacant, to those who were friends of pensioners of the Court favourites and the Ministers.

It was absurd to hope that anyone with no recommendation above his talents could obtain even a clerk’s place in the Government, added M. de Biron, and he advised Luc to spare himself the fatigue and humiliation of further applications, and suggested that he should abandon ideas that were certain to end in disappointment.

The letter was meant kindly, but it brought a flush of anger to Luc’s cheek; then he laughed, and with the laugh his old serenity returned. M. de Biron should not block his way; there were other channels. He did not show the letter to his father, but merely told him that his former Colonel could be no help.

The Marquis said nothing, but a few days later produced, with much pride, a letter from M. de Caumont to M. de Richelieu, Governor of Languedoc, asking for his interest for Luc, who was touched and moved by his father’s thought.

Yet he was not altogether pleased. He had heard enough of M. de Richelieu from Hippolyte, M. de Caumont’s son, who had never spoken of him with anything but dislike, and he knew the Governor’s reputation as the most famous man of fashion of the moment and a hard persecutor of the Protestants in Languedoc.

But he could refuse neither his own father’s interest nor the help of his dead friend’s father, and M. de Richelieu was a great gentleman who could raise anyone where he would. It happened also that he was now at Avignon, where he seldom enough made his residence, and Luc’s direct enthusiasm resolved him to go there and present his letter himself. His father was for sending it by messenger, and his mother wished to detain him in Aix. He suspected her of tender little schemes with regard to himself and Mademoiselle de SÉguy, who had, with such innocent coquetry, been sent in upon him that August evening, when, as it happened, he had first made the resolve to enter politics. He overruled this gentle opposition and left Aix in late September with one servant and a good roan horse. Though his soul was serious it was young. The freedom of the peaceful open country, the freshness of the autumn air, the sight of the fields of grain—these simple things affected his spirits to the height of exaltation. He felt his old health return; he was as light-hearted as if he had never seen Bohemia.

But as they rode farther into Languedoc the surroundings changed: the ground was neglected, the cottages mere huts, the peasantry silent and ragged, the cattle poor and scarce. Luc, noticing this, fell into a kind of gravity.

They took the journey easily. On the second day, when within easy distance of Avignon, they stopped at a humble inn on the high road shaded by a dusty grove of poplar trees.

Luc found two other travellers in the parlour. At the first glance he was interested in them; he had a passion for studying character, and could never observe strangers indifferently. He crossed to the window, which looked on to a herb garden, and seated himself on the chintz-covered window-seat and delicately watched the two, who were engaged in eating omelette and salad at a round table near the fire-place. One was a priest and a conspicuously handsome man, but without attraction, for his dark face was hard and immobile and his eyes, though very brilliant, expressionless; he wore the black robes of a canon, which hung gracefully on his spare, powerful figure.

His companion was, as Luc knew at once, a foreigner; what else he might be was not so easy to decide. His age might be between thirty and forty. He was tall, well-made, and well-featured, with a rich olive complexion and quickly moving brown eyes. He wore his own hair hanging about his face, and there was more than a little of the eccentric in his dress, which was of the brightest green silk lined with black.

From the hard quality of his French, something vivid, self-confident, gay, and yet indifferent in his manner and person, Luc believed he was Italian.

He, on his part, was not long in noticing the slim young gentleman in the window-seat, and, leaning back in his chair, he called out an invitation to wine. Something in his cordial tone, his attitude, his smile of gleaming, excellent teeth showed Luc that he was a fellow of no breeding.

Without hesitation he civilly declined and left the room. As he closed the door he heard the foreigner laugh good-naturedly and say something to the priest in Italian marked by a beautiful Roman accent.

Luc had his own meal outside on one of the little tables under the dusty vines, and before the middle of the afternoon rode on again, meaning to reach Avignon before the night.

Towards evening they came to a miserable village, whose inhabitants seemed in a considerable state of excitement: a great number of women were talking and shrieking round the fountain in the market-place, and three priests argued outside the porch of the poor little church.

The Marquis acknowledged their humble salutes, and was glad to be rid of them and out in the open country again.

He had not long cleared the houses, however, before he overtook a procession, which was evidently the cause of the commotion. It consisted of four soldiers, a serjeant, and a prisoner, followed by a crowd of peasants, mostly men and boys.

Luc’s hazel eyes flashed quickly to the prisoner, who walked between the two foremost soldiers. She was a young peasant girl, finely made and not more than eighteen years of age. Her blue skirt and red bodice were worn, faded, and patched, her feet and arms bare; round her coarse, sun-dried hair was a soiled white handkerchief. Her face, though pale under the tincture of the weather, was composed and serene, even though the crowd was assailing her with hideous names, with horrible accusations, with handfuls of dirt and stones.

Her hands were tied behind her, and if her walk fell slowly the soldiers urged her on with the points of their bayonets.

The Marquis reined up his horse to allow them to pass. He supposed they were going to set her in the stocks for witchcraft or scolding; that look on her face he supposed must be stupidity. The whole spectacle roused in him sad distaste.

The rabble of peasantry, seeing that he was a gentleman, fell to silence till they were well past him, then broke out again into shouts and curses. The soldiers turned off the high road across a field that led to a long slope and a little thin wood.

The Marquis remained still, with his patient servant behind him, watching the little procession.

He noticed the girl stumble and saw one of the soldiers thrust at her so that she fell on to her knees. The crowd at once broke into laughter and pelted her with dirt.

Luc touched up his horse, crossed the field, and in a moment was among them. One of the guard had dragged the prisoner to her feet; she was being assailed by such horrid terms of abuse that he thought she must be some shameless thief or murderess. He spoke to the serjeant with quiet disgust, and his fine appearance, lofty manner, and long habit of command served to win the man’s respectful answer: he could not, he declared, keep the people off. As he spoke he threatened with his sword the nearest of the crowd, which had already scattered at the sight of the gentleman.

“The law,” said Luc, “is no matter for me to interfere with,” for he saw the fellow pulling a warrant from his pocket; “but I will use my whip on these should they further molest yonder wretch.”

He glanced at the prisoner, who stood for the moment isolated with her head bent. Her feet and the edge of her dress were covered with mud; her shoulders were bruised and her legs scratched and bleeding; her face, which was handsome, but of low type, was flooded with sudden colour and her wide lips twitched uncontrollably. The Marquis sickened to see her; he was turning back when she looked up straight into his face. Her eyes were large, far apart, and bloodshot, the lashes white with dust. As she gazed at Luc her disfigured, almost stupid-looking countenance was changed by a smile which was like a lady’s thanks for courtesy.

Then she bent her head again and began to walk on painfully. The soldiers closed round her, the serjeant fell in with a salute to the Marquis, and the crowd followed, but at some distance and in silence.

Luc watched them till they were over the hill and out of sight; he frowned in absorption and hardly troubled to notice two horsemen who had joined him and reined their horses near his. When he turned, indifferently, to look at them, he saw that they were the same remarkable couple that he had noticed at the inn.

The Italian saluted him instantly.

“Monsieur,” he said with some eagerness, “where has the woman gone?”

“Over the hill,” answered Luc shortly.

The Italian rubbed his hands together softly.

“Well, well,” he said under his breath.

“What has the creature done?” asked the Marquis of the priest. “And where have they brought her from?”

The priest named a village some leagues off, and the Italian remarked that they had seen the procession earlier in the day, and that the probable object of bringing her this distance was to terrorize the countryside.

“What is her crime?” demanded the Marquis haughtily. He disliked priests and foreigners in general and felt no reason to make an exception for these two.

The priest fixed on him eyes that were metallic and twinkling in their hardness; he made the sign of the cross and said, in a cultured, toneless voice—

“The cursÈd woman was a heretic.”

The Italian seemed amused.

“M. de Richelieu is working hard to purify Languedoc,” he remarked.

“What was her punishment?” asked Luc.

“An easy one,” returned the priest—“she will be hanged.”

Luc turned his head towards the speaker.

“Because she is a heretic?” he asked slowly.

“What else?”

The angry blood stained the Marquis’s delicate face. He knew these things happened, but he had never before been brought close to them.

“You make me feel ashamed of my humanity,” he said.

“Are you a Protestant?” demanded the priest.

“No.”

“Perhaps you do not believe in the Gospels?” urged the other maliciously.

Luc gazed at him with a kindling scorn.

“Neither in Gospels, nor Christ, nor God,” he said sternly, “nor any of the symbols superstition uses—nor in anything you and your kind worship.”

The priest was taken aback for a moment and did not answer, but the Italian remarked cheerfully—

“A follower of M. de Voltaire.”

“A follower of no man,” returned Luc wearily. Some minutes passed while the three horsemen seemed to be waiting silently. Then Luc moved his horse away in the direction of the high road; he had seen the soldiers, without their prisoner, and the straggling crowd coming back over the crest of the hill.

The Italian cried after him—

“Are you for Avignon to-night, Monsieur?”

He answered without looking back. When he reached the main road again the dark clouds that had been lowering all day broke and a steady rain began to fall, hastening the short autumn twilight. After perhaps half a league the road branched. The Marquis turned to the left, but soon perceived that he had missed his way, for the dark was descending, and there was no sign of the walls of Avignon on all the wide, gloomy horizon.

The rain was steady, cold, and seemed not likely to cease. The only building in sight was a deserted farmhouse with the roof half gone and weeds and fallen masonry choking garden and yard.

Some of the lower rooms were, however, dry and sheltered, and in one of them Luc, his servant, and the two horses took refuge for the night.