uke bade her good-bye also, and said, in a
mysterious, yet most significant way,

"Au revoir, my sweet little sister, you will be pleased with what I am
about to do." And Isabelle sought in vain for the key to the enigma.

CHAPTER XIX. NETTLES AND COBWEBS

The worthy tyrant's advice was sensible and good, and de Sigognac
resolved to follow it without delay. Since Isabelle's departure, no
attraction existed for him in the troupe, and he was very glad of a
valid pretext for quitting it; though he could not leave his humble
friends without some regrets. It was necessary that he should disappear
for a while--plunge into obscurity, until the excitement consequent upon
the violent death of the young Duke of Vallombreuse should be forgotten
in some new tragedy in real life.

So, after bidding farewell to the worthy comedians, who had shown him
so much kindness, he departed from the gay capital--mounted on a stout
pony, and with a tolerably well-filled purse--his share of the receipts
of the troupe, which he had fairly earned. By easy stages he travelled
slowly towards his own ruined chateau. After the storm the bird flies
home to its nest, no matter how ragged and torn it may be. It was the
only refuge open to him, and in the midst of his despondency he felt
a sort of sad pleasure at the thought of returning to his ancestral
home--desolate and forlorn as it was--where it would have been better,
perhaps, for him to have quietly remained--for his fortunes were not
improved, and this last crowning disaster had been ruinous to all his
hopes and prospects of happiness.

"Ah, well!" said he to himself, sorrowfully, as he jogged slowly on,
"it was predestined that I should die of hunger and ennui within those
crumbling walls, and under my poor, dilapidated, old roof, that lets the
rain run through it like a huge sieve. No one can escape his destiny,
and I shall accomplish mine. I am doomed to be the last de Sigognac."

Then came visions of what might have been, that made the sad present
seem even darker by contrast; and his burden was well-nigh too heavy
for him to bear, when he remembered all Isabelle's goodness and
loveliness--now lost to him forever. No wonder that his eyes were often
wet with tears, and that there was no brightness even in the sunshine
for him.

It is needless to describe in detail a journey that lasted twenty days,
and was not marked by any remarkable incidents or adventures. It is
enough to say that