ts to please Amelie de Repentigny for
sake of her wealth, the woman he most loved for sake of her beauty and
spirit would yet drop like a golden fleece into his arms, either through
spite at her false lover or through love of himself. De Pean cared
little which, for it was the person, not the inclination of Angelique,
that carried away captive the admiration of the Chevalier de Pean.

The better to accomplish his crafty design of abducting Le Gardeur, De
Pean had taken up his lodging at the village inn. He knew that in the
polite hospitalities of the Manor House he could find few opportunities
to work upon the susceptible nature of Le Gardeur; that too many
loving eyes would there watch over his safety, and that he was himself
suspected, and his presence only tolerated on account of the business
which had ostensibly brought him there. At the inn he would be free
to work out his schemes, sure of success if by any means and on any
pretence he could draw Le Gardeur thither and rouse into life and fury
the sleeping serpents of his old propensities,--the love of gaming, the
love of wine, and the love of Angelique.

Could Le Gardeur be persuaded to drink a full measure to the bright eyes
of Angelique des Meloises, and could he, when the fire was kindled,
be tempted once more to take in hand the box more fatal than that of
Pandora and place fortune on the turn of a die, De Pean knew well that
no power on earth could stop the conflagration of every good resolution
and every virtuous principle in his mind. Neither aunt nor sister nor
friends could withhold him then! He would return to the city, where the
Grand Company had a use to make of him which he would never understand
until it was too late for aught but repentance.

De Pean pondered long upon a few words he had one day heard drop from
the lips of Bigot, which meant more, much more, than they seemed to
imply, and they flitted long through his memory like bats in a room
seeking an outlet into the night, ominous of some deed of darkness.

De Pean imagined that he had found a way to revenge himself on Le
Gardeur and Amelie--each for thwarting him in a scheme of love or
fortune. He brooded long and malignantly how to hatch the plot which he
fancied was his own, but which had really been conceived in the deeper
brain of Bigot, whose few seemingly harmless words had dropped into the
ear of De Pean, casually as it were, but which Bigot knew would take
root and grow in the conge