"Raphael Llorient!" cried the remaining two brothers; "is he then home
again?"

"Aye, indeed he is!" said a voice from the doorway. The figure they saw
there was that of a man clad in black velvet, fitting his slender,
almost girlish figure like a glove. Only a single decoration, but that
the order of the Golden Fleece, hung at his neck from a red ribbon. He
was lithe and apparently young, but Claire could not see his face
clearly. He remained obstinately against the light, but she could see
the points of a slender moustache, and distinguish that the young man's
eyebrows met in a thick black bar on his forehead.

"Don Raphael," said the Mayor of Collioure, "you are welcome to this
your house. This is my brother Anatole, Professor of Eloquence at the
Sorbonne----"

"Ah, the Parisian!" said the young man, bowing slightly; "so you have
killed King Guise after crowning him? We in Madrid ever thought him a
man of straw for all his strutting and cock-crowing. He would have none
of our great King Philip's advice. And so--and so--they used him for
firewood in the guard-room at Blois! Well, every dog has his day. And
who may this be--I ask as lord of the manor and feudal superior, while
warming myself by your fire as a friend--this pretty maid with the
downcast eyes?"

"I believe," said the Professor gravely, "that the lady is your own
cousin-german. Her name is Claire Agnew, and that of her mother was
Colette Llorient of Collioure."

CHAPTER XXIV.

COUSIN RAPHAEL, LORD OF COLLIOURE

"Is this thing true?"

The young man in the velvet suit, with the order of the Golden Fleece on
his breast, spoke hastily and haughtily, jerking his head back as if
Doctor Anatole had made to strike him in the face.

"My friend Professor Anatole Long does not lie," said Claire firmly. "I
am the daughter of Francis Agnew the Scot, and of his wife Colette
Llorient."

"You are prepared to prove this?"

"I have neither wish nor need to prove it," said Claire. "I am content
to be my father's daughter, and to have known him for an honest man. I
trust not to shame his memory!"

The young man with the golden order at his throat stood biting his lip
and frowning--with a frown so concentrated and deadly that Claire
thought she had never seen the like.

"The daughter of Colette Llorient--to whom my grandfather----"

He broke off hastily, his sentence unachieved. Then all at once his mood
appeared to alter. A smile broke upon his