"Listen to me," said she. But at this moment a heavy step was heard
outside. "It is Norbert," gasped she.

"Impossible! It is more likely his father."

"It is Norbert," cried Mademoiselle de Laurebourg, and snatching the
little bottle from the Counsellor's hands, she thrust it into her bosom.
The door flew open, and Norbert appeared on the threshold. Diana and the
Counsellor both uttered a shriek of terror. His livid countenance seemed
to indicate that he had passed through some terrible scene; his gait
was unsteady, his clothes torn and disordered, and his face stained with
blood, which had flowed from a cut over his temple. Daumon imagined that
some outrage had taken place.

"You have been wounded, Marquis?" said he.

"Yes, my father struck me."

"Can it be possible?"

"Yes, he struck me."

Mademoiselle Diana had feared this, and she trembled with the terror of
her vague conjectures as she made a step towards her lover.

"Permit me to examine your wound," said she.

She placed both her hands at the side of his head and stood on tip-toe,
the better to inspect the cut. As she did so, she shuddered; an inch
lower, and the consequences might have been fatal.

"Quick," she said, "give me some rags and water."

Norbert gently disengaged himself. "It is a mere nothing," said he, "and
can be looked after later on. Fortunately I did not receive the whole
weight of the blow, which would otherwise have brought me senseless to
the ground, and perhaps I should have been slain by my father's hand."

"By the Duke? and for what reason did he strike you?"

"Diana, he had grossly insulted you, and he dared to tell me of it. Had
he forgotten that the blood of the race of Champdoce ran in my veins as
well as in his?"

Mademoiselle de Laurebourg burst into a passion of tears.

"I," sobbed she, "I have brought all this upon you."

"You? Why, it is to you that he owes his life. He dared to strike me as
if I had been a lackey, but the thoughts of you stayed my hand. I turned
and fled, and never again will I enter that accursed house. I renounce
the Duke de Champdoce, he is no longer my father, and I will never look
upon his face again. Would that I could forget that such a man existed;
but, no, I would rather that I remembered him for the sake of revenge."

Again the heart of Daumon overflowed with joy. All his deeply malignant
spirit thrilled pleasantly as he heard these words.

"Marquis," said he, "perhaps you will now