onour. Child,
child, the two will be murdered in my very house, and the guilt will be
on my soul.'

'No, father! We will--we will save him. See, only tell him this.'

'This--what? My brain is confused. I have thought long--long.'

'Only this, father, dear father. You shall not be tormented any more, if
only you will tell him that my brother has made Eustacie his wife, then
will I do all the rest.'

Diane coaxed, soothed, and encouraged her father by her caresses, till
he mounted his mule to return to the castle at dinner-time, and she
promised to come early in the afternoon to follow up the stroke he was
to give. She had never seen him falter before,--he had followed out his
policy with a clear head and unsparing hand,--but now that Berenger's
character was better known to him, and the crisis long delayed had come
so suddenly before his eyes, his whole powers seemed to reel under the
alternative.

The dinner-bell clanged as he arrived at the castle, and the prisoners
were marched into the hall, both intent upon making their request on
Osbert's behalf, and therefore as impatient for the conclusion of the
meal, and the absence of the servants, as was their host. His hands
trembled so much that Berenger was obliged to carve for him; he made the
merest feint of eating; and now and then raised his hand to his head as
if to bring back scattered ideas.

The last servant quitted the room, when Berenger perceived that the
old man was hardly in a state to attend to his request, and yet the
miserable frost-bitten state of poor Landry seemed to compel him to
speak.

'Sir,' he began, 'you could do me a great kindness.'

The Chevalier looked up at him with glassy eyes.

'My son,' he said, with an effort, 'I also had something to say. Ah!
let me think. I have had enough. Call my daughter,' he added, feeling
helplessly with his hands, so that Berenger started up in alarm, and
received him in his arms just in time to prevent his sinking to the
floor senseless.

'It is a stroke,' exclaimed Berenger. 'Call, Phil! Send the gendarmes.'

The gendarmes might be used to the sight of death of their own causing,
but they had a horror of that which came by Nature's hand. The purple
face and loud gasps of the stricken man terrified them out of their
senses. _'C'est un coup,'_ was the cry, and they went clattering off to
the servants. These, all men but one old crone, came in a mass to the
door, looked in, beheld their master rigid an