We must now conduct the reader at once to the entrance of the castle of Masseran. The gate itself was shut, though the drawbridge was down and the portcullis was up. There was a little wicket, indeed, left ajar, showing the long, dark perspective of the heavy archway under the gate tower, gloomy and prison-like, and the large square court beyond, with its white stones glistening in the sun; while the gray walls of the castle and part of a window, as well as the door of the keep, appeared at the opposite side. On either side, under the archway, but scarcely to be seen in its gloomy shadow, was a long bench, and on the left hand a low door leading up to the apartments in the gate tower. The right-hand bench was occupied by one of the soldiers of the place, and at the door was the warder's wife talking to him, while our friend, the jovial priest, who had escaped without harm or hinderance, notwithstanding the threats of the Count de Meyrand, was waiting at the wicket, from time to time looking through into the court, and from time to time turning round and gazing upon the mountains, humming an air which was certainly not a canticle.

After a pause of some ten or fifteen minutes, the warder himself appeared, a heavy man, past the middle age, and dressed in rusty gray. "He won't see you, Father Willand," he said. "He's walking in the inner court, and in a dangerous sort of mood. I would rather not be the man to cross him now."

"Poh! nonsense," replied Father Willand, laughing. "Go in again to him, good warder: tell him I have business of importance with him, and I know that this refusal is only one of his sweet jokes. He will see me, soft-hearted gentleman! Go and tell him—go and tell him, warder!"

"Faith, not I," replied the warder. "That business of last night seems to have galled him sorely, and he is just in the humour to fire a man out of a culverin, as we know his father once did; but in these days it won't do: culverins make too loud a report, you know. I will not go near him again."

"Then I will go myself," replied the priest. "He won't hurt me. Nay, warder, you would not squeeze the Church in the wicket gateway! By Heaven—or, as I should say less profanely, by the blessed rood—if you pinch my stomach one moment more you will pinch forth an anathema, which will leave you but a poor creature all your life."

"Well, be it on your head," cried the warder, with a grim smile; "though a two-inch cudgel or a fall from the battlements is the best thing to be hoped for you."

The priest was not to be deterred, however; and, making his way onward, he crossed the outer court, turned to the right, and, passing through a long stone passage, feeling damp and chilly after the bright sunshine, he entered a colonnade or sort of cloister which surrounded the inner court. It was a large, open space of ground, with tall buildings overshadowing it on all sides. The sun seldom reached it; and there was a coldness and stillness about its aspect altogether—its gray stones, its small windows, its low-arched cloisters, its sunless air, and the want of even the keen activity of the mountain wind—which made most people shudder when they entered it.

But there was nothing the least chilly in the nature of Father Willand. His heart was not easily depressed, his spirits not easily damped; and when he entered the cloister, and saw the Lord of Masseran walking up and down in the court, an irresistible inclination to laugh seized him, notwithstanding all the warder had said of his lord's mood at that moment.

It is true—although, from the description of the worthy officer of bolts and bars, one would have expected to see the Lord of Masseran acting some wild scene of passion—he was, on the contrary, walking calmly and slowly backward and forward across the court, with his eyes bent on the ground, indeed, but with his countenance perfectly tranquil. It was nothing in his demeanour, however, that gave the priest a desire to laugh, for he was very well aware that the passions of the Lord of Masseran did not take the same appearances as those of other men, and he saw clearly that he was at that moment in a state of sullen fury, which might, very likely, have conducted any other man to some absurd excess. His personal appearance, also, had nothing in it to excite mirth in any degree. He was a tall, thin, graceful-looking man of the middle age, with a nose slightly aquiline, eyes calm and mild, lips somewhat thin and pale, and a complexion, very common in the northern part of Italy, of a sort of clear, pale olive. His dress was handsome, but not ostentatious; and, on the whole, he looked very much the nobleman and the man of the world of those times. The priest, however, laughed when he saw him; and, though he tried to smother it under the merry affectation of a cough, yet the effects were too evident upon his countenance to escape the eye of the Lord of Masseran as he approached.

"Ha! Father Willand," said the marquis, as their eyes met, "I told the warder to say that I did not wish to see you to-day."

"Ah, but, my excellent good lord," replied the priest, bowing his head low, with an air of mock humility and reverence, "it was I who wanted to see your lordship; so I e'en ventured to make my way in, though the warder—foul fall the villain—has so squeezed my stomach in the wicket, that, like a bruised tin pot, it will never again hold so much as it did before."

"You are somewhat of a bold man," said the marquis, with a cold, bitter, sidelong look at the priest; "you are somewhat of a bold man to make your way in here when I bid you stay out. You may come in once too often, Father Willand."

"Heaven forbid, my lord," replied the priest; "I shall never think it too often to serve your lordship, even though it should be at your funeral: a sad duty that, my lord, which we must perform very often for our best friends."

"I should imagine, priest," replied the marquis, somewhat sternly, "you would laugh at the funeral of your best friends."

"I will promise your lordship one thing," replied the priest, "to laugh at my own, if death will but let me. But surely, my lord, this is a time for merriment and gayety! Why, I came to congratulate your lordship upon your escape from those who attacked you last night—Ugh! ugh! ugh!"

While the priest, unable to restrain himself, thus laughed aloud, the marquis bit his lip, and eyed him askance, with a look which certainly boded no great good to the merry ecclesiastic. They were at that moment close to a spot where a door opened from one of the masses of building into the cloister, and the Lord of Masseran, raising his voice a little, exclaimed, in a sweet Italian tone, "Geronimo!"

For a moment the priest laughed more heartily than before; but, seeing the marquis about to repeat his call, he recovered himself, and, laying his finger on the nobleman's arm, said, "Stay a moment, my lord, stay a moment before you call him. First, because the sweet youth must not exercise his ministry upon me. It would make too much noise, you know, and every one in the valley is aware that I have come hither. Next, because there are certain friends of mine looking for me at the bottom of the slope, and expecting me within half an hour, so that I cannot enjoy your Geronimo's conversation—"

"It is, in general, very short," said the marquis.

"And, thirdly," continued the priest, "because I have come up to tell you two or three things which require no witnesses. I am here upon a friendly errand, my good lord, and you are such a niggard that you refuse me my laugh. However, I must have it, be it at you, at myself, or at any one else; and now, if you behave well and civilly, I will tell you tidings that you may like well to hear. If you don't want to hear them, I will take myself away again, and then neither priest nor warder is much to blame. Shall I go?"

He spoke seriously now, and the Lord of Masseran replied, in a somewhat more placable tone, a moment's reflection showing him that the priest, in all probability, would not have come thither except upon some important errand: "No, do not go," he said, "but speak to me, at least, seriously." He looked down upon the ground for a moment, and then added, "You may well think that I am angry, after all that took place last night; for you, who hear everything, have doubtless heard of that also."

As he spoke, he suddenly raised his keen dark eyes to the countenance of the priest, as if inquiring how much he really did know of the matter in question.

"Oh yes," replied Father Willand, "I do hear everything, my good lord, and I knew all that had happened to you last night before I sat down to my breakfast this morning: I heard of your happy deliverance, too, from the hands of the daring villains who captured you, for which gracious interposition I trust that you will keep a candle burning perpetually before the shrine of Saint Maurice."

The priest spoke in a serious tone, but still there was an expressive grin upon his countenance; and, after pausing for a moment or two more, he added, as the marquis was about to reply, "You think I am jesting, or that I do not understand what I am talking about; but I know the whole business as well as you do yourself, and somewhat better. I tell you, therefore, that it is a great deliverance that you have met with, though perhaps you think it less a deliverance than an interruption."

The priest paused as if for the marquis to reply; but the Lord of Masseran was silent also, regarding his companion with a quiet, sly, inquiring air, which, perhaps, could be assumed by no other countenance upon earth than that of an Italian. It might be interpreted to say, "You are more in my secrets than I thought. A new bond of fellowship is established between us."

As he remained actually silent, however, the priest went on to say, "What I come to talk to you about is this very matter; for you may chance be outwitted, my good lord, even where you are putting some trust. But what I have to say," he continued, "had better not be said among so many windows and doors."

"Come with me! come with me!" said the Lord of Masseran; and leading the way through the cloisters, he thridded several long and intricate passages, none of them more than dimly lighted, and many of them profoundly dark. He was followed by the priest, who kept his hand in the bosom of his robe, and, if the truth must be said, grasped somewhat firmly the hilt of a dagger, never feeling perfectly sure what was to be the next of the Marquis of Masseran's sweet courtesies. Nothing occurred, however, to interrupt him in his course, and at length the lord of the castle stopped opposite to a doorway, over which a glimmering light found its way. As soon as it was opened, the bright beams of the day rushed in, and the marquis led the way into a wide garden, which sloped down the side of the hill, and lay between the walls of the castle itself and an outwork thrown forward to command one of the passes of the mountain. It was walled on all sides, and nothing could be seen beyond it; but in itself it offered a beautiful contrast to the wild scenery round, being cultivated with great care and neatness, and arranged in the Italian style of gardening, which was then very little known in France, where it had been first introduced some years before by Catharine de Medicis. Long and broad terraces, connected together by flights of steps, formed the part of the garden nearest to the chateau, while below appeared many a formal walk, sheltered, even in that mountain scene, by rows of tall cypresses and hedges of other evergreen plants.

"Here we can speak undisturbed," said the marquis, as soon as he had taken a few steps in advance. "Now what is it you have to tell me, priest?"

"Did you ever hear of such a person as Bernard de Rohan?" demanded the priest, fixing his eyes upon the countenance of the Lord of Masseran.

"I have—I have heard of him," replied the marquis, turning somewhat pale. "What of him? what of him? Is he not still beyond the Alps?"

"He is within a few leagues of your dwelling," answered the priest.

"I thought so, I thought so," exclaimed the Lord of Masseran, striking his brow with his hand. "But he shall find he has come too soon."

"You must take heed what you do," replied the priest, grinning. "Did you ever hear how the fox vowed vengeance against the lion, and was wroth, and forgot his cunning, and flew at the lion's muzzle, and the lion put his paw upon him, and squeezed the breath out of the poor fox's body? My very good lord, you do not know that this Bernard de Rohan has men-at-arms at his back, and despatches to you from the MarÉchal de Brissac, which may not be pleasant for you to receive; and, moreover, he is a great friend of a certain Count de Meyrand, and they have been conferring earnestly together both last night and this morning, and the name of the Lord of Masseran was more than once mentioned. So now, my son, you see what is going forward, and must take your measures accordingly."

The wily Piedmontese sunk back into himself as he heard the unpalatable tidings communicated to him. From the few significant words which the priest had spoken, it was evident enough to the Lord of Masseran that, by some means or another, all the plans and purposes in which he was engaged in at the time were nearly as well known to the personage with whom he was then conversing as to himself, and yet he could not bring himself to speak with him freely thereupon. He wanted advice. He wanted assistance. The priest appeared to know more than he said; and, to arrive at certainty upon that point, the Marquis of Masseran now applied himself with all the skill and shrewdness of which he was master; but in good Father Willand he met with more than his match; for, with equal dexterity and shrewdness, the ecclesiastic had resources which the Lord of Masseran himself had not. He could evade a question by a laugh, or a jest, or a figure, or a pun, and never did diplomatist more skilfully turn and double in a conference than he did in his conversation with the Marquis of Masseran.

At length, driven to speak more clearly, the marquis paused suddenly on the terrace across which they were walking, and, fronting the priest, demanded abruptly and sternly, "Tell me, then—tell me what is this situation in which you say I am placed, which you always allude to and never explain. Tell me this, and tell me how I shall meet the danger, or, by the powers of Heaven and hell, you shall never quit this place alive."

"A pretty and a sweet persuasion," exclaimed the priest, laughing heartily; "but, my dear son, I am not so easily killed, even if such parricidal thoughts were anything more than a jest. You know not what a tough morsel an old priest is: hard of mastication for even stronger teeth than yours. Nay, nay, think of tenderer food! In other terms, ask me pleasantly and civilly, my good son, and you may then chance to receive an answer. If you were to kill me forty times over it would do you no good. My secrets are like the goose's golden eggs: not to be got at by slaughter."

"There is something that you want, priest," replied the marquis, in the same abrupt tone. "Quick! tell me what it is; if it be anything in reason, you shall have it."

The priest smiled with a meaning look, but thought for a moment or two before he replied; for, to say the truth, he had not, in his own mind, fixed upon that which he was to demand as his recompense. He had, it is true, an object in view, and the chief means of attaining that object was to persuade the Marquis of Masseran that he dealt with him truly and sincerely. Now he well knew that the mind of the worthy lord was so constituted that it could by no means be brought to conceive that any man dealt honestly with another, unless he had some personal object to gain by so doing, and, therefore, the priest determined to assign such an object, although he was, in reality, without one. "Well," he said, "well, you shall promise me, most solemnly, first, not to tell any one what I reveal to you; and also, if you find that what I tell you is true, and if the way that I point out to you prove successful, you shall give the priest of the church of Saint John of Bonvoison a fat buck in August every year when he chooses to send for it; you shall also give him a barrel of wine of your best vintage, and five silver pieces for alms to the poor, and this in perpetuity."

"Fy, now, fy!" replied the Lord of Masseran; "for your own life were quite enough; but in perpetuity, that is more than I can engage for: it is owning your vassalage, good father."

"It must be even so, though," replied the priest, "or you have not my secret. I care not for venison, sinner that I am, it is the good of the Church I think of."

"Well! well!" answered the Lord of Masseran, "most disinterested father, I give my promise; and now be quick, for I expect a visiter full soon, my dealings with whom may depend upon your words: what is it that I should fear?"

"That Adrian, count of Meyrand," said the priest, "and Bernard, baron de Rohan, laying their heads together for their own special purposes—"

"That can never be, that can never be," cried the marquis, with a scoff. "They both love the same woman. They both seek her. They can as soon unite as oil and water. No, no, that is all vain!" and he turned away with a sneer.

"Suppose," said the priest, smiling in a way that again shook the Marquis of Masseran's feelings of security, "suppose that the one should love her money and the other herself, and they should agree to settle it thus: We will prove to the King of France that the Lord of Masseran holds secret communication with the Duke of Savoy and the Emperor Ferdinand. Suppose this were the case, I say, do you think, my son, that there would be any chance of their really proving it? Could the noble Count of Meyrand say boldly that, to his knowledge, the Lord of Masseran conspired secretly with some troops of Savoy, to carry off, as if by force, himself, the Lord of Masseran, and Mademoiselle de Brienne, for special purposes of his own, somewhat treasonable towards France, only that the scheme was defeated by an accident? Could Bernard de Rohan say that he had seen the Lord of Masseran in the hands of his captors, going along with no great signs of unwillingness, and showing no great signs of gratitude to those who set him free."

"Was he there?" exclaimed the Lord of Masseran, eagerly. "What, a youth in a buff coat? By Heaven, his eyes have been haunting me all night. He seemed to look through me."

"The same person," replied the priest, with a loud laugh; "and he did see through you, my son. You have been very transparent lately. I ask no questions, but put it to yourself whether these two gentlemen can say these things to the King of France. Then may not the one say, 'Sire, I love this girl, and have got her father's promise for her hand; here is her brother, too, consents to our marriage: I claim as my reward your good-will and approbation.' Then may not the other say, 'Sire, the Lord of Masseran, as I have showed you, betrays your trust. He has fair castles and fortresses, beautiful lands and lordships, vineyards, olive-grounds, cornfields: I pray you, in return for having discovered his dealings with the empire, put me in possession of his lands and his lordships till your majesty shall think fit to conclude a peace.'"

The Lord of Masseran looked moodily down upon the ground; and though, to say the truth, he did not yet put great faith in the priest's sincerity, he asked briefly, "Well, what remedy? How is this to be avoided?"

"That," replied the priest, "for certain I cannot tell you; but I can tell you what I would do were you Father Willand and I Marquis of Masseran. I would order horses to be saddled and grooms to be prepared, and by the most silent, secret, and sudden way, I would betake myself to Paris, cast myself at the king's feet, accuse this Count of Meyrand of seeking to corrupt me, tell him that Savoy had offered me bribes, and, failing there, had striven to carry me off. I would do all this, and then—"

"Hush!" said the Lord of Masseran, "hush! here is some one coming to seek me:" and, leaving the priest, he advanced a few steps towards a servant who now approached from the house. The marquis asked a question in a low tone, to which the other replied, loud enough for Father Willand to hear,

"He will not come within the gates, sir, but desires to speak with you for a moment without: he says he is but in his hunting-garb, and unfitted to enter your halls."

"How many men has he with him?" demanded the Lord of Masseran.

"No one but a page, my lord, near the gates," replied the man. "The rest I saw gathered together about a mile down the road, on the other side of the valley."

"I will come!" said the Lord of Masseran, "I will come!" and he added, in a lower tone, some words which the priest did not hear, but which he judged had reference to himself, from perceiving the eyes of the speakers turned more than once shrewdly towards him. "I will be back again in a few minutes, good father," the Lord of Masseran continued. "Wait for me, for we have yet much to speak of."

"I will wait, I will wait," replied the priest; "only be not long, my good son; for, though I have much to say to you, I have little time to spare."

The Lord of Masseran gave him every assurance that he would return speedily; and then left the garden, followed by the attendant who had summoned him. The priest looked after them and listened; and, being someway connected with the race of that gentleman called in history Fine-ear, he distinctly heard the door by which he and the marquis had entered the garden locked after the latter had quitted it. "There is another door," he muttered to himself, with a smile, looking towards one of the archways upon the terrace leading to the chateau.

The next instant, however, there was a sound from that quarter also, as if somebody turned the key there likewise; but the priest continued to smile notwithstanding, and, proceeding slowly along the terraces, as if merely to amuse himself by a walk, he approached the thick wall of the garden, and stopped at the entrance of one of those little guerites, or watch-towers, with which the whole enclosure was studded from place to place. Up the narrow staircase in the stone he made his way, and then looked carefully out through the loophole which was turned towards the chief entrance of the chateau. No living object, however, was to be seen in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle itself; though, as the attendant had said, about a mile down the road which passed through the valley was a group of men, and horses, and dogs gathered together in various listless attitudes, while two large eagles were seen whirling in immense circles high up above the tops of the mountains, upon the lower part of whose tall sides a flock of sheep appeared feeding in peaceful tranquillity.

"I may as well go," said the priest to himself, as he gazed out upon this quiet scene. "I have said all that it is necessary to say, and this sweet lord may not have done all that he may think it necessary to do. I like not his whisperings, so I may as well go."

But, as the priest thus murmured to himself, he looked out again in the same direction, when two persons came slowly forth from behind an angle of one of the towers, and, taking their way under the garden wall, approached the very spot where Father Willand stood. There was no difficulty in recognising the Lord of Masseran and the Count de Meyrand. "Now what would I give," murmured the priest to himself, "for one of those famous inventions—those ear-trumpets—those sound-catchers—which we read about in old histories."

The good priest, however, possessed none such; and though his ears, as we have said, were very sharp; though he thrust his head as far as he could into the loophole; though the count and his companion, thinking that no one observed them, spoke loudly and vehemently; and though they passed directly under the turret where the priest stood, nevertheless, the words that he could catch were very few. "Well, my good lord, well," said the Lord of Masseran, "you blame me without cause. I have done my best, and am as disappointed as you are."

"I do not blame you," replied the other; "I only tell you what must be the result if the plans you have proposed cannot be carried through immediately."

"Not that I have proposed, not that I have proposed," replied the other; "the suggestion was your own."

"Indeed!" said the Count de Meyrand, "this is something new to me. All I know is, that I have got the whole of your scheme drawn out in your own hand; the names false, indeed, or written in cipher, but for that we will soon find a key. What I asked was this, either that you should pay me the large debt you owe, or that you should give me such assistance in my suit to Mademoiselle de Brienne as would enable me to call her my wife within two months. Those two months have now wellnigh expired, and I will be trifled with no more."

The latter part of this sentence was lost to the ear of the priest; but he guessed what it must be; and certainly the slight portion that he had heard gave him a very strong inclination to hear more. He paused, then, to consider whether this could be accomplished by any possible means, but it was evident that such could not be the case; for, even while he turned the matter in his mind, the little path along which the Marquis de Masseran and his companion walked led them farther and farther from the wall of the garden. We must now, however, follow the two noblemen, and leave the priest to his fate, which we shall very speedily see.

"Well, well, my good friend," replied the Marquis de Masseran, in answer to the last observation of the count, "the time has not yet fully expired, and it shall be your own fault if my promise is not completely fulfilled."

"How can it be my fault?" said the count. "I have nothing to do with the fulfilment of your promise."

"Yes, you have," answered the Marquis of Masseran: "I will give you the means; but if any pitiful scruple, any lady-like hesitation upon your part, prevents you from employing them, the fault is your own."

"Mark me now, my good lord," replied the count: "it was understood between us that I was to have no share in anything contrary to my allegiance to the crown of France. With your own plans I had nothing to do. If you chose to give the agents of the empire an opportunity of making you a prisoner, and taking possession of your fortresses for reasons and with purposes best known to yourself, I had nothing to do with that: that was your own affair; I would be in no degree implicated with it; I would receive no bribes from Savoy or Austria," he continued, with a sneer; "all I agreed to do was to rescue the lady, if, on any occasion, I were informed that she was travelling as a prisoner between Fort Covert and Brianzone. This I promised to do, and I should have had no scruple then to use my opportunities to the best advantage."

The Lord of Masseran smiled with a meaning look, which his companion easily interpreted. The count added with a frown, "You mistake me: I would have done her no wrong, sir! Though I would have taken care to keep her so long with me that she could give her hand to no one else, I would have treated her with all honour."

"Doubtless, doubtless," replied the Lord of Masseran; "but what I mean now, my lord count, is, that if I again, at a great risk to myself, give you good opportunity, you will have no hesitation in using a little gentle force to compel this lady's union with yourself. We have priests enough who will perform the ceremony with a deaf ear to the remonstrances that her reluctance and maiden modesty may suggest; but when we have carried the matter so far as that, remember that my safety, nay, my life itself, may be compromised if you yield to any weak supplications. Once commit ourselves, and our only safety is in her being your wife! Then she will be silent for her own sake."

"By Heavens," said the count, in a deep, low tone, "she shall be my wife if it be but in revenge for the scorn with which she treated me in Paris. If it costs the lives of her and me, and all our kin, she shall be mine, Lord of Masseran."

"So be it, then," replied the marquis; "but, to accomplish my new scheme, I must be absent some few days."

The count gazed upon him somewhat suspiciously. "Some few days?" he said. "What! long enough, marquis, to go to Paris or Vienna?"

"Neither," replied the Marquis of Masseran, coolly. "Three days will suffice, if well used. In three days I will be back again."

"And in those three days," replied the count, "this Bernard de Rohan, whom we were talking about just now, will have fair opportunity of visiting the bright lady, and even, perhaps, by the connivance of her fair mother, may carry her within the French frontier, and plead her father's promise at the court of the king."

"Not by her mother's connivance," replied the marquis. "Her mother loves him as little as you do; and, even were he at the court of France to-morrow, her protest against the marriage would be sufficient to stop it. But, to guard against all danger, and, if possible, to put the mind of a suspicious man at ease, I will tell you that one great cause of my going hence is to prevent this Bernard de Rohan from setting foot within my walls. I know his coming: I know why he comes far better than you do. I have heard his motives and his views within this hour from one who is well acquainted with them, and, if he present himself at my gates, he will find a stern refusal till I return. Then I must see him, but I shall then be prepared. Will this satisfy you? If it do so, tell me at once; for it is high time that I should mount my horse, and quit this place without delay."

Though, in reality, anything but satisfied, the Count de Meyrand expressed his consent to the proposal, determined in his own mind to watch all the proceedings of a confederate whom he could so little trust, even in the dark and tortuous schemes in which their interests were combined. He tried, as he parted from the marquis, to conceal his doubts lest they should betray his purposes; but that worthy gentleman was far too practised a reader of the human heart and human countenance to be so deceived; and when they separated, it was with the full conviction that each would endeavour to deceive and circumvent the other, unless some strong necessity continued to bind them together.

"Now," thought the Marquis de Masseran, as he paused for a moment looking after the Count de Meyrand, "now for this priest. I must have more information from him: more full, more complete. Then what is to be done with him? It might be dangerous to confine him; and yet it were easy to say that he had held treasonable discourses. A fall from the walls might be as good as anything. I will speak with Geronimo about it."

He had been standing with his back towards the castle and his eyes fixed upon the ground while he thus held parley with himself. On the other side of the valley, which was there profound, rose up the mountain, with the road into Piedmont winding along it, at the distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, to use the ordinary expression, as the crow flies, but fully a mile by the road; and, as he ended his murmuring soliloquy, the Marquis of Masseran looked up in that direction. To his utter surprise and consternation when he did so, he beheld the figure of the priest walking quietly along the highway towards the lower ground of Savoy.

He hastened back to the castle; but he was assured at the gates by all the several persons who were standing there that no one had passed. On examining the doors of the garden, every one of them was found to be closed; and the Marquis of Masseran came to a conclusion, which was not pleasant for a man engaged in his peculiar pursuits, namely, that he was deceived and betrayed by some one of his own household.