ave to
check her child in such a villany." Olivia spoke with intense feeling,
her eyes lambent and her lips quivering.

"Drimdarroch's mother must have been a rock," said Count Victor.

"And to take what was my father's name!" cried Olivia; "Mungo has been
telling me that. Though I am a woman, I could be killing him myself."

"And here we're in our flights, sure enough!" broke in the father, as he
left them with a humorousous pretence at terror.

"Now you must tell me about the women of France," said Olivia. "I have
a friend who was there once, and tells me, like you, he was indifferent;
but I am doubting that he must have seen some there that were worth his
fancy."

"Is it there sits the wind?" thought Montaiglon. "Our serene angel is
not immune against the customary passions." An unreasonable envy of
the diplomatist who had been indifferent to the ladies of France took
possession of him; still, he might have gratified her curiosity about
his fair compatriots had not Doom returned, and then Olivia's interest
in the subject oddly ceased.

CHAPTER XVII -- A SENTIMENTAL SECRET

"Good night," said Olivia, at last, and straightway Count Victor felt
the glory of the evening eclipse. He opened the door to let her pass
through.

"I go back to my cell quiet enough," she said, in low tones, and with a
smiling frown upon her countenance.

"Happy prisoner!" said he, "to be condemned to no worse than your own
company."

"Ah! it is often a very dull and pitiful company that, Count Victor,"
said Olivia, with a sigh.

It was not long till he, too, sought his couch, and the Baron of Doom
was left alone.

Doom sat long looking at his crumbling walls, and the flaming fortunes,
the blush, the heat-white and the dead grey ash of the peat-fire. He
sighed now and then with infinite despondency. Once or twice he pshawed
his melancholy vapours, gave a pace back and forward on the oaken floor,
with a bent head, a bereaved countenance, and sat down again, indulging
in the passionate void that comes to a bosom reft of its joys, its hopes
and loves, and only mournful recollection left. A done man! Not an old
man; not even an elderly, but a done man none the less, with the heart
out of him, and all the inspiration clean gone!

Count Victor's advent in the castle had brought its own bitterness, for
it was not often now that Doom had the chance to see anything of the
big, brave outer world of heat and enterprise. This gallant r