and her affections could
not be disentangled by learning that he was bound--rather the contrary.

Besides, there was plenty of sophistry. Her father had always assured
her of the invalidity of the marriage, without thinking it necessary
to dwell on his own arrangements for making it invalid, so that was no
reasonable ground of objection; and a lady of Diane's period, living in
the world where she had lived, would have had no notion of objecting
to her lover for a previous amour, and as such was she bidden to rank
Berenger's relations with Eutacie. And there was the less scruple on
Eutacie's account, because the Chevalier, knowing that the Duchess had
a son and two grandsons, had conceived a great terror that she meant to
give his niece to one of them; and this would be infinitely worse,
both for the interests of the family and of their party, than even
her reunion with the young Baron. Even Narcisse, who on his return had
written to Paris a grudging consent to the experiment of his father and
sister, had allowed that the preservation of Berenger's life was needful
till Eutacie should be in their power so as to prevent such a marriage
as that! To Diane, the very suggestion became certainty: she already saw
Eutacie's shallow little heart consoled and her vanity excited by these
magnificent prospects, and she looked forward to the triumph of her own
constancy, when Berenger should find the image so long enshrined in his
heart crumble in its sacred niche.

Yet a little while then would she be patient, even though nearly a
year had passed and still she saw no effect upon her prisoners, unless,
indeed, Philip had drunk of one of her potions by mistake and his clumsy
admiration was the consequence. The two youths went on exactly in
the same manner, without a complaint, without a request, occupying
themselves as best they might--Berenger courteously attentive recovered
his health, and the athletic powers displayed by the two brothers when
wrestling, fencing, or snow-balling in the courtyard, were the amazement
and envy of their guard. Twice in the course of the winter there had
been an alarm of wolves, and in their eagerness and excitement about
this new sport, they had accepted the Chevalier's offer of taking their
parole for the hunt. They had then gone forth with a huge posse of
villagers, who beat the woods with their dogs till the beast was aroused
from its lair and driven into the alleys, where waited gentlemen,
gendarm