at our Prefect would have treated me so. There is some intrigue
behind all this. I suspect--ah, I will teach them to play their tricks
on me! A convent--my poor boy, do you expect they would leave her there?
Even a hundred years ago they would have dragged her out for a political
marriage--how much more now!"

For a moment there was dead silence; they looked hard at each other, but
if Angelot read anything in his cousin's eyes, it was something too
extraordinary to be believed. He flushed again suddenly as he said, "You
can never consent to such a marriage, for you gave me your word of
honour that you would not."

"Will they ask my consent? I have refused it once already," said Herve
de Sainfoy.

He walked a few steps, and turned back; he was much calmer now, and his
face was full of grave thought and resolution.

"Angelot," he said, "you are your father's son, as well as your uncle's
nephew. Tell me, have you actually done anything to bring you under
imperial justice?"

"Nothing," Angelot answered. "The police may pretend to think so. Uncle
Joseph says I am in danger. But I have done nothing."

"Did you say you were leaving the country to-morrow? Alone?"

"With some of Uncle Joseph's friends."

"Ah! And your father?"

"I shall come back some day. Life is too difficult," said Angelot.

"You want an anchor," Herve said, thoughtfully. "Now--will you do
everything I tell you?"

"In honour."

"Tiens! Honour! Was it honour that brought you into my house to-night?"

"No--but not dishonour."

"Well, there is no time for arguing. I suppose you are not bound in
honour to this wild-goose chase of your uncle's--or his friends'?"

"I don't know," Angelot said; and indeed he did not, but he knew that
Cesar d'Ombre looked upon him as an addition to his troubles, and had
only accepted his company to please Monsieur Joseph.

And now the same power that had dragged Angelot out of his way to
Lancilly was holding him fast, heart and brain, and was saying to him,
"You cannot go"; the strongest power in the world. He was trembling from
head to foot with a wilder, stranger madness than any he had ever known;
the great decisive hour of his life was upon him, and he felt it, hard
as it was to realise or understand anything in those dark, confused
moments.

What wonderful words had Herve de Sainfoy said? by what way had he
brought him, and set him clear of the chateau? he hardly knew. He found
himself out in the dark on th