children all starving. My lady
offers to take him back into her service. Oh, no; my rogue does not
want that; he wants money enough to get to the next town, where he has
a brother who will get him work. Mademoiselle hands him out a gold
piece, returns to the chateau, sends for me, storms at me, and at last
permits me, as a favor, to explain to her that the fellow has no
wife, no child, no brother that I know of, but her gold piece will
enable him to get drunk and to live without work for a month. Oh,
young ladies of fortune are difficult to manage--very. Mine is no
worse than others, I dare say. Rather better than some, for at least
she knows her own mind."

I had said no word concerning Lisa or Jacques Haret, but before the
old man left me he spoke of his misfortune to me, looking as if he
were the guilty one instead of Jacques Haret.

"It was I who was blind--I who should have watched my niece. But I did
not--I was much to blame." The scanty tears of age dropped from his
eyes as he spoke. I asked if anything had been heard of Lisa.

"Not a word," he said, "but I believe, and mademoiselle believes, that
as soon as Monsieur Jacques deserts her, Lisa will return."

So, even poor Peter knew that Jacques Haret would desert Lisa.

Madame Riano was ever talking during that fortnight of her projected
journey to Scotland. I saw that the mention of it made Mademoiselle
Capello very uneasy. Fearless as Francezka was, she knew better than
to attempt to remain alone and unmarried in Brabant, for there was no
strain of deep-seated folly in her. She might find some _dame de
compagnie_ to take Madame Riano's place, but that was not an agreeable
thought to her, and she was very far from being ready to give up her
liberty to any man--just then. She confided to me with secret laughter
that her one hope of keeping her aunt in Brabant was, that the war was
still on with unabated fury between Madame Riano and the Bishop of
Louvain, and Madame Riano had not yet scored a conclusive victory over
her enemy. At present the bishop was trying to get the consent of the
government to add to the episcopal palace, and Madame Riano, who loved
to enact the role of a she-Jupiter, had determined that the palace was
already large enough for the bishop, and was preaching a crusade
through the country against the proposed improvement.

CHAPTER XVIII

A VINDICTIVE ROGUE

One afternoon, during our stay at the Manoir Cheverny, Gaston Cheverny