his brow,
which, added to the depth and loftiness of countenance that this long
period of patience and resolution had impressed on his naturally fine
features, without taking away that open candour that had first attracted
Diane when he was a rosy lad. His frame had strengthened at the same
time, and assumed the proportions of manhood; so that, instead of
being the overgrown maypole that Narcisse used to sneer at, he was now
broad-shouldered and robust, exceedingly powerful, and so well made
that his height, upwards of six feet, was scarcely observed, except by
comparison with the rest of the world.

And his character had not stood still. He had first come to Paris
a good, honest, docile, though high-spirited boy: and though manly
affections, cares, and sorrows had been thrust on him, he had met them
like the boy that he was, hardly conscious how deep they went. Then
had come the long dream of physical suffering, with only one thought
pertinaciously held throughout--that of constancy to his lost wife;
and from this he had only thoroughly wakened in his captivity,
the resolution still holding fast, but with more of reflection and
principle, less of mere instinct, than when his powers were lost or
distracted in the effort of constant endurance of pain and weakness. The
charge of Philip, the endeavour both of educating him and keeping up
his spirits, as well as the controversy with Pere Bonami, had been no
insignificant parts of the discipline of these months; and, little as
the Chevalier had intended it, he had trained his young kinsman into a
far more substantial and perilous adversary, both in body and mind, than
when he had caged him in his castle of the Blackbird's Nest.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE ENEMY IN PRESENCE

Then came and looked him in the face,
An angel beautiful and bright,
And then he knew it was a fiend,
That miserable knight.
--COLERIDGE

'Father, dear father, what is it? What makes you look so ill, so
haggard?' cried Diane de Selinville, when summoned the next morning to
meet her father in the parlour of the convent.

'Ah, child! see here. Your brother will have us make an end of it. He
has found her.'

'Eustacie! Ah, and where?'

'That he will not say, but see here. This is all billet tells me: "The
hare who has doubled so long is traced to her form. My dogs are on her,
and in a week's time she will be ours. I request you, sir, to send me a
goo