At La BelliÈre an old man walked in the garden of the chÂteau, leaning on a servant’s arm and taking short turns to and fro on the stretch of grass bordering the fish-pond, where the sedges rustled and the yellow flags were raising their yellow banners above each clump of spears. The bloom was falling from the fruit trees, and lay turning brown upon the grass. In the wilder corners of the orchard the weeds and wild flowers stood knee-deep, the sunlight shimmering into the waste of green, and making each wild flower seem like a living gem, red, white, and azure, purple and gold.

A dog wandered lazily at the old man’s heels, snapping now and again at an over-zealous fly or watching the blackbirds and mistlethrushes that were foraging for nestfuls of querulous children. Swallows skimmed the surface of the fish-pond, twittering, and touching the still water with their wings between the great green leaves of the water-lilies.

It was Stephen Raguenel, who went slowly to and fro, leaning on the servant’s arm, his steps weak and hesitating, an expression of profound and patient melancholy upon his face. He stooped so much that he seemed to have lost three inches of his stature in a week. His eyes had lost their pointedness and their sparkle; they were fixed and vacant, the eyes of a man who is living largely in the past. From time to time the Vicomte would lift his head and look round him with the half-wistful wonder of a child. The second simplicity of life seemed to be taking possession of him, and the pride of the great seigneur had mellowed into the quiet gentleness of the old man.

The servant, whose head was but a shade darker than his master’s, kept step with him, and did not speak except when spoken to. Nor was his respect a thing of the surface only. He had felt much that the Vicomte himself had felt, and the shadow of humiliation fell also across his face.

“Girard, good fellow, what day of the week is it?”

“The third, sire.”

“Ah, ah, and the swallows are here. It is hardly a year ago since we rode to join Madame the Countess in the south.”

“Yes, sire, that is so.” And the servant, with the discretion of a good listener, contented himself with following where his master led.

“How do the apricots look on the south wall, Girard—eh?”

“They have been full of bloom, sire.”

“Madame TiphaÏne is fond of the fruit. Let me see, Girard—how many leagues is it to Josselin from here?”

Girard pretended to consider, though he was asked the same question twenty times a day.

“Some seventeen leagues, I should say, sire, by Montcontour and Loudeac.”

“And it was Thursday?”

“A Thursday, sire, when madame set out.”

The Vicomte had halted and appeared to be counting the ripples that a swallow’s wings had raised on the quiet waters of the pool.

“Then I shall judge that they reached Josselin on the Sabbath, Girard—eh?”

“I should judge so, sire.”

“And to-day is Tuesday.”

“To-day is Tuesday.”

“Then on the morrow or the next day we should have good news?”

“To-morrow or the next day, sire, we should have good news.”

Stephen Raguenel turned away from the fish-pond with a quiet sigh.

“That is well, that is well. I think I will rest, Girard, on the seat under the Pucelle de Saintongue. Thanks, my good fellow. There is no news to-day from the abbey of Lehon?”

“No news, sire,” and Girard passed a nervous hand across his mouth.

“Abbot Stephen has a good name in Dinan, Girard—eh?”

“A very good name, sire. The country people call him their ‘little father.’”

“Their ‘little father’?” and the Vicomte folded his arms. “He will be a spiritual father to my son, my good Girard. Good luck to the lad. He was the only son I had.”

It so happened that while Stephen Raguenel dozed in the sun on the bench under the pear-tree, Stephen, Abbot of Lehon, dealt with two shamefaced mortals who had begged an audience of him that very morning. They were none other than the two La BelliÈre men-servants who had shown such whole-hearted consideration for Croquart in refusing to hinder him in the capturing of the Sieur de Tinteniac and their lady. Honestly ashamed of the part they had played in the adventure, they had ridden back from Loudeac, only to find that they had not the courage to be the bearers of such news to their lord and master the Vicomte of La BelliÈre.

Being sensible fellows, they had conceived the plan of shifting the responsibility upon the fatherly shoulders of the Abbot of Lehon.

The Abbot did not thank them in the sincerity of his heart, but, being a conscientious priest, bemoaned the disaster and accepted the responsibility.

He ordered the two men to be locked up safely in two vacant cells.

The Vicomte had lost one child to the Church, and Abbot Stephen concluded that it would be courting a calamity to confess to him that his other child had been stolen by the “Flemish Devil.” Madame TiphaÏne and the Sieur de Tinteniac might be rescued by the Bretons under Messire Geoffroi Dubois, and the Abbot deemed it wise to temporize, in the hope of receiving better news.

Unfortunately the good man’s discretion was nullified by the tongue of an irresponsible woman, and that woman Lisette, TiphaÏne’s bower wench whom the two men had left at Loudeac. A meddlesome but warm-hearted creature, she had made her way to Dinan by begging a place on the back of a pack-horse belonging to a merchant who was returning to that town after disposing of his goods at Loudeac. From Dinan she trudged to La BelliÈre, carrying her news like a piece of hot pudding on her tongue. To such a woman it was easier to chatter than to think, and after such a journey it was imperative that she should create something of a sensation. She created it by falling in a faint at the Vicomte’s feet as the old man crossed the court-yard from the garden, leaning on Girard’s arm.

The woman was a fool, and Girard, shrewd in his generation, suspecting that she was ready to shriek the news of some calamity into his master’s ears, promptly attempted to smother her indiscretion by whipping her gown up over her face.

“Ah, the little fox! Pierre, Gilbert, carry the baggage into the kitchen and give her a cup of wine.”

He was bending over Lisette and stuffing her gown into her mouth to prolong her fainting fit. Several men ran forward, pounced on her, and prepared to bundle her unceremoniously out of the Vicomte’s sight.

“Who is it, Girard?”

“No one, sire—only a silly chit who has walked too fast in the sun,” and his knuckles showed no consideration for the softness of Lisette’s lips.

The men were lifting her from the flag-stones when she recovered her senses with true hysterical inopportuneness and began to claw at the dress Girard had turned up over her head. The old man saw a scream gathering in the bower woman’s bosom, and did his best to throttle it in her throat.

“Fool! idiot! hold your tongue—”

Lisette wriggled her hands free and clawed at Girard’s face.

“Sire, sire—”

“Devil take the cat!”

The men showed her no great courtesy, but the gown fell away from her face in the scuffle.

“Let me be, fools!”

“Hold your tongue, you she-dog!”

“Sire, sire, they are hiding the truth from you. It is Lisette, madame’s woman.”

The Vicomte’s shadow fell across the flag-stones close to her.

“Lisette!”

He had recognized the girl. Girard stood back and surrendered to the hysterical folly of a woman.

“Let her be, men. Come, what has happened?”

The dishevelled figure fell on its knees at the Vicomte’s feet.

“Sire, sire, a great misfortune.”

“Ah!”

“Madame has been taken by Croquart the Fleming. It was on the road to Josselin.” And she gabbled all she knew, and straightway began to weep.

Stephen Raguenel looked down at her mutely, very gently, yet with a peculiar quivering of the lips. There was nothing foolish in Lisette’s grief to him. The truth was too poignant to suffer him to feel the thoughtless egotism of the woman’s tears.

“Girard.”

The old man was at his side, looking questioningly into his master’s face.

“Girard, help me to my room. I had rather have heard that she was dead.”