rly drew her into a window, and demanded what she had
to tell them, laughing too at the simplicity of the youth, who had
left for the Chevalier a formal announcement that he had dispatched his
protest to Rome, and considered himself as free to obtain his wife by
any means in his power.

'Where is _la petite_?' Narcisse demanded. Behind her Queen, as usual?'

'The young Queen keeps her room to-night,' returned Diane. 'Nor do
I advise you, brother, to thrust yourself in the way of _la petite
entetee_ just at present.'

'What, is she so besotted with the peach face? He shall pay for it!'

'Brother, no duel. Father, remind him that she would never forgive him.'

'Fear not, daughter,' said the Chevalier; 'this folly can be ended by
much quieter modes, only you must first give us information.'

'She tells me nothing,' said Diane; 'she is in one of her own
humours--high and mighty.'

'_Peste_! where is your vaunt of winding the little one round your
finger?'

'With time, I said,' replied Diane. Curiously enough, she had no
compunction in worming secrets from Eustacie and betraying them, but
she could not bear to think of the trap she had set for the unsuspecting
youth, and how ingenuously he had thanked her, little knowing how she
had listened to his inmost secrets.

'Time is everything,' said her father; 'delay will be our ruin. Your
inheritance will slip through your fingers, my son. The youth will soon
win favour by abjuring his heresy; he will play the same game with the
King as his father did with King Henri. You will have nothing but your
sword, and for you, my poor girl, there is nothing but to throw yourself
on the kindness of your aunt at Bellaise, if she can receive the vows of
a dowerless maiden.'

'It will never be,' said Narcisse. 'My rapier will soon dispose of a big
rustic like that, who knows just enough of fencing to make him an easy
prey. What! I verily believe the great of entreaty. 'And yet the fine
fellow was willing enough to break the marriage when he took her for the
bride.'

'Nay, my son,' argued the Chevalier, will apparently to spare his
daughter from the sting of mortification, 'as I said, all can be done
without danger of bloodshed on either side, were we but aware of any
renewed project of elopement. The pretty pair would be easily waylaid,
the girl safely lodged at Bellaise, the boy sent off to digest his pride
in England.'

'Unhurt?' murmured Diane.

Her father checked Narcisse'