hivalry were not extinct--when horrible, retaliating
civil wars of extermination had made life cheap; nefarious persecutions
had hardened the heart and steeled the eye, and the licentiousness
promoted by the shifty Queen as one of her instruments of government had
darkened the whole understanding. The most hateful heights of perfidy,
effeminacy, and hypocrisy were not reached till poor Charles IX., who
only committed crimes on compulsion, was in his grave, and Henry III. on
the throne; but Narcisse de Ribaumont was one of the choice companions
of the latter, and after the night and day of murder now stood before
his sister with scented hair and handkerchief--the last, laced,
delicately held by a hand in an embroidered glove--emerald pendants in
his ears, a moustache twisted into sharp points and turned up like
an eternal sardonic smile, and he led a little white poodle by a
rose-coloured ribbon.

'Well, sister,' he said, as he went, through the motions of kissing her
hand, and she embraced her father; 'so you don't know how to deal with
megrims and transports?'

'Father,' said Diane, not vouchsafing any attention, 'unless you
can send her some assurance of his life, I will not answer for the
consequences.'

Narcisse laughed: 'Take her this dog, with my compliments. That is the
way to deal with such a child as that.'

'You do not know what you say, brother,' answered Diane with dignity.
'It goes deeper than that.'

'The deeper it goes, child,' said the elder Chevalier, 'the better it is
that she should be undeceived as soon as possible. She will recover, and
be amenable the sooner.'

'Then he lives, father?' exclaimed Diane. 'He lives, though she is not
to hear it--say----'

'What know I?' said the old man, evasively. 'On a night of confusion
many mischances are sure to occur! Lurking in the palace at the very
moment when there was a search for the conspirators, it would have been
a miracle had the poor young man escaped.'

Diane turned still whiter. 'Then,' she said, 'that was why you made
Monsieur put Eustacie into the ballet, that they might not go on
Wednesday!'

'It was well hinted by you, daughter. We could not have effectually
stopped them on Wednesday without making a scandal.'

'Once more,' said Diane, gasping, though still resolute; 'is not the
story told by Eustacie's woman false--that she saw him--pistolled--by
you, brother?'

'_Peste_!' cried Narcisse. 'Was the prying wench there? I thought th