our appeal to M. de Kercadiou."

And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M. de
Vilmorin's nature did not admit of rancour, and together they took their
way up the steep main street of Gavrillac.

CHAPTER II. THE ARISTOCRAT

The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world's traffic, lay
in a curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway up the
slope, of the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor. By the
time Gavrillac had paid tribute to its seigneur--partly in money and
partly in service--tithes to the Church, and imposts to the King, it was
hard put to it to keep body and soul together with what remained. Yet,
hard as conditions were in Gavrillac, they were not so hard as in many
other parts of France, not half so hard, for instance, as with the
wretched feudatories of the great Lord of La Tour d'Azyr, whose vast
possessions were at one point separated from this little village by the
waters of the Meu.

The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any
feature of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac,
though mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat,
flat-fronted edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with
external wooden shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers
or pavilions under extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden,
denuded now, but very pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a
fine sweep of balustraded terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and
always had been, the residence of unpretentious folk who found more
interest in husbandry than in adventure.

Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac--Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
derived no man knew whence or how--confirmed the impression that his
house conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the
experience of courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his
King. He left it to his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the
family in those exalted spheres. His own interests from earliest years
had been centred in his woods and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated
his acres, and superficially he appeared to be little better than any of
his rustic metayers. He kept n