. It was obvious that the
enemy was getting ready to strike and would endeavour to oppose the
marriage by one of his characteristic moves.

Nevertheless, nothing happened: nothing two days before the ceremony,
nothing on the day before, nothing on the morning itself. The marriage
took place in the mayor's office, followed by the religious celebration
in church; and the thing was done.

Then and not till then, the duke breathed freely. Notwithstanding his
daughter's sadness, notwithstanding the embarrassed silence of his
son-in-law, who found the situation a little trying, he rubbed his hands
with an air of pleasure, as though he had achieved a brilliant victory:

"Tell them to lower the drawbridge," he said to Hyacinthe, "and to admit
everybody. We have nothing more to fear from that scoundrel."

After the wedding-breakfast, he had wine served out to the peasants and
clinked glasses with them. They danced and sang.

At three o'clock, he returned to the ground-floor rooms. It was the hour
for his afternoon nap. He walked to the guard-room at the end of the
suite. But he had no sooner placed his foot on the threshold than he
stopped suddenly and exclaimed:

"What are you doing here, d'Emboise? Is this a joke?"

D'Emboise was standing before him, dressed as a Breton fisherman, in a
dirty jacket and breeches, torn, patched and many sizes too large for
him.

The duke seemed dumbfounded. He stared with eyes of amazement at that
face which he knew and which, at the same time, roused memories of a
very distant past within his brain. Then he strode abruptly to one of
the windows overlooking the castle-terrace and called:

"Angelique!"

"What is it, father?" she asked, coming forward.

"Where's your husband?"

"Over there, father," said Angelique, pointing to d'Emboise, who was
smoking a cigarette and reading, some way off.

The duke stumbled and fell into a chair, with a great shudder of fright:

"Oh, I shall go mad!"

But the man in the fisherman's garb knelt down before him and said:

"Look at me, uncle. You know me, don't you? I'm your nephew, the one who
used to play here in the old days, the one whom you called Jacquot....
Just think a minute.... Here, look at this scar...."

"Yes, yes," stammered the duke, "I recognize you. It's Jacques. But the
other one...."

He put his hands to his head:

"And yet, no, it can't be ... Explain yourself.... I don't
understand.... I don't want to understand...."