rough the wicket into the courtyard of the house--a place
filled with snow that had lain there and increased since the first
flake had fallen until now, and through which a thin path or track had
been trodden from the great doorway to a smaller one that admitted to
the house.

"You perceive," remarked Phelypeaux, "this is not a luxurious halting
for you, monsieur. Still, the _chevaux-legers_ are doubtless used to
an absence of luxury."

"The _chevaux-legers_ can make shift with anything," replied the
soldier. And shrugging his shoulders as he spoke, he said:
"_Monseigneur l'Eveque_, why do you imagine his Majesty has instructed
me to become your guest for a night?"

He spoke without any of that respect usually shown to exalted members
of the Church in the days of Louis XIV--a monarch who considered
himself a religious man, and demanded that the most scrupulous
reverence should be paid to all things ecclesiastical. But, in truth,
the Bishop of Lodeve was known to be a scandal to the sacred calling
he belonged to; and now that Georges St. Georges was aware that he was
face to face with the man himself, he refused to testify a respect for
him that he could not feel.

"Humph! 'Monseigneur l'Eveque!' Ha! So you know me?" St. Georges
nodded, whereon the other went on:

"Why the king has sent you to me? Eh? Perhaps because he thinks I am a
good host, and because he loves his troops to be well treated. So I am a
good host--only it is when I am in Languedoc. Here, _malheureusement_, I
must be perforce a bad one. I have no servants but those I have brought
with me, and one or two women who look after the chateau during my
absence."

He had by this time opened the door into the house and escorted his
visitor into a large, desolate-looking saloon, on the walls of which
the damp hung in huge beads and drops, and in which there was a
fireplace of vast dimensions that gave the appearance of never having
had a fire lighted in it for years. Yet before this fireplace there
stood two great armchairs, as though to suggest that here was a
comfortable, cosey spot in which to sit.

"We'll soon have a fire," said this strange creature, whereon he went
to a corner of the room in which hung some arras, and, thrusting it
aside, brought forth a handful of kindling wood, two or three green,
newly cut logs of different sizes, and some shavings, to which he
applied the tinder after he had thrown them all pell-mell into the
grate together. T