res."

"And you forgive?" glancing up from the pistoles in his hand to the
dark, stern face above him. "You forgive?"

"Not yet!"

Then he urged on his horse again, Boussac following him.

"But you will, my friend, you will," he said, as they rode down the
slope. "In the name of the good God who forgives all, forgive her, I
implore you!"

"Forgive her? I will never forgive her! I have forgiven that other who
lies in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the sea, but her reckoning
is yet to come. She stole my child from me, she lied to me in Paris,
sympathized with me on my loss when, at the time, she knew where that
child was; drove me to draw on Louvois, and thereby to my ruin. I will
never forgive her! And if she now refuses to restore the child,
then--But enough! Come," and shaking his horse's reins he rode down
the vine-clad roads to the front of the manoir.

It frowned as before on the slope below it, presented on this bright
summer morning as grim, impassable a front as on that winter night
when first he drew rein outside it; beyond the huge hatchment now
nailed on its front in memory of the late marquise nothing was
changed. It looked to St. Georges's eyes a fitting place to enshroud
the evil doings of the family he had hated so bitterly, and of the one
representative now left whom he hated too.

Seizing the horn as he had seized it long ago in the murkiness of that
winter night, he blew upon it and then waited to be answered. He had
not long to do so; a moment later the old warder who had once before
opened the small door under the _tourelle_ stood before him.

"Is Mademoiselle de Roquemaure in her house?" he asked sternly, while
Boussac, sitting his horse behind him, uttered no word.

"She is in her house, monsieur."

"You know me. I have been here before. Say I have ridden express from
Paris to see her and must do so at once."

"I will say so, monsieur. Be pleased to enter."

CHAPTER XXXV.

AT LAST.

It seemed almost as if he had been expected from his appearance being
received in so matter-of-fact a way. Yet, he reflected, why should it
be otherwise? Aurelie de Roquemaure could scarce know of all that had
happened to him of late--above all could not be aware that he had
become possessed of the information that she was the kidnapper of
Dorine.

He had, however, but little time for reflection since Boussac was by
his side, and, when they dismounted from their horses, had followed
him i