ouville
was discarding its own glory. Incapable of anger the gentle Jeanne de
Saint-Savin could only bless and weep, but often she raised her eyes to
heaven, asking it to account for this singular doom. Those eyes filled
with tears when she thought that at her death her cherished child would
be wholly orphaned and left exposed to the brutalities of a brother
without faith or conscience.

Such emotions repressed, a first love unforgotten, so many sorrows
ignored and hidden within her,--for she kept her keenest sufferings from
her cherished child,--her joys embittered, her griefs unrelieved, all
these shocks had weakened the springs of life and were developing in her
system a slow consumption which day by day was gathering greater force.
A last blow hastened it. She tried to warn the duke as to the results of
Maximilien's education, and was repulsed; she saw that she could give no
remedy to the shocking seeds which were germinating in the soul of her
second child. From this moment began a period of decline which soon
became so visible as to bring about the appointment of Beauvouloir to
the post of physician to the house of Herouville and the government of
Normandy.

The former bonesetter came to live at the castle. In those days such
posts belonged to learned men, who thus gained a living and the leisure
necessary for a studious life and the accomplishment of scientific
work. Beauvouloir had for some time desired the situation, because his
knowledge and his fortune had won him numerous bitter enemies. In spite
of the protection of a great family to whom he had done great services,
he had recently been implicated in a criminal case, and the intervention
of the Governor of Normandy, obtained by the duchess, had alone saved
him from being brought to trial. The duke had no reason to repent this
protection given to the old bonesetter. Beauvouloir saved the life of
the Marquis de Saint-Sever in so dangerous an illness that any other
physician would have failed in doing so. But the wounds of the duchess
were too deep-seated and dated too far back to be cured, especially as
they were constantly kept open in her home. When her sufferings warned
this angel of many sorrows that her end was approaching, death was
hastened by the gloomy apprehensions that filled her mind as to the
future.

"What will become of my poor child without me?" was a thought renewed
every hour like a bitter tide.

Obliged at last to keep her bed, the duc