ed among the
peasants with whom her childhood had been passed, that the village
crones declared nothing had gone well with the place since the Bellaise
had been expelled, with a piteous tale of the broken-hearted lady, that
she had never till now understood.

For the flagrant injustice perpetrated on her uncle and cousin in the
settlement on Berenger and herself she cared little, thinking they had
pretty well repaid themselves, and not entering into Berenger's deeper
view, that this injustice was the more to be deplored as the occasion of
their guilt; but she had no doubt or question as to the grand stroke
of yielding up her claims on the estate to the Sieur de Bellaise. The
generosity of the deed struck her imagination, and if Berenger would
not lead her vassals to battle, she did not want them. There was no
difficulty with Sir Marmaduke; he only vowed that he liked Berenger's
wife all the better for being free of so many yards of French dirt
tacked to her petticoat, and Philip hated the remembrance of those red
sugar-loaf pinnacles far too much not to wish his brother to be rid of
them.

M. de Bellaise, when once he understood that restitution was intended,
astonished Sir Marmaduke by launching himself on Berenger's neck with
tears of joy; and Henry of Navarre, though sorry to lose such a partisan
as the young Baron, allowed that the Bellaise claims, being those of a
Catholic, might serve to keep out some far more dangerous person whom
the court party might select in opposition to an outlaw and a Protestant
like M. de Ribaumont.

'So you leave us,' he said in private to Berenger, to whom he had taken
a great liking. 'I cannot blame you for not casting your lot into such
a witch's caldron as this poor country. My friends think I dallied at
court like Rinaldo in Armida's garden. They do not understand that when
one hears the name of Bourbon one does not willingly make war with the
Crown, still less that the good Calvin left a doctrine bitter to the
taste and tough of digestion. Maybe, since I have been forced to add my
spoon to stir the caldron, it may clear itself; if so, you will remember
that you have rights in Normandy and Picardy.'

This was the royal farewell. Henry and his suite departed the next
morning, but the Duchess insisted on retaining her other guests till
Philip's cure should be complete. Meantime, Claude de Mericour had
written to his brother and arranged a meeting with him. He was now no
boy who c