had struck
Caron, and moreover, to have done so without any sense of horror, or
even of regret, was a matter in which she asked herself whether she had
done well. Certainly La Boulaye had presumed unpardonably in speaking
to her as he had spoken, and for his presumption it was fitting that
he should be punished. Had she interfered she must have seemed to
sympathise, and thus the lesson might have suffered in salutariness.
And yet Caron La Boulaye was a man of most excellent exterior, and, when
passion had roused him out of his restraint and awkwardness, of most
ardent and eloquent address. The very sombreness that--be it from his
mournful garments or from a mind of thoughtful habit--seemed to envelop
him was but an additional note of poetry in a personality which struck
her now as eminently poetical. In the seclusion of her own chamber, as
she recalled the burning words and the fall of her father's whip upon
the young man's pale face, she even permitted herself to sigh. Had he
but been of her own station, he had been such a man as she would have
taken pride in being wooed by. As it was--she halted there and laughed
disdainfully, yet with never so faint a note of regret. It was absurd!
She was Mademoiselle de Bellecour, and he her father's secretary;
educated, if you will--aye, and beyond his station--but a vassal withal,
and very humbly born. Yes, it was absurd, she told herself again: the
eagle may not mate with the sparrow.

And when presently she had come from her chamber, she had been
greeted with the story of a rebellion in the village, and an attempted
assassination of her father. The ringleader, she was told, had been
brought to the Chateau, and he was even then in the courtyard and about
to be hanged by the Marquis. Curious to behold this unfortunate, she had
stepped out on to the balcony where already an idle group had formed.
Inexpressible had been her shock upon seeing him that lay below, his
white face upturned to the heavens, his eyes closed.

"Is he dead?" she asked, when presently she had overcome her feelings.

"Not yet Mademoiselle," answered the graceful Chevalier de Jacquelin,
toying with his solitaire. "Your father is bringing him to life that he
may send him back to death."

And then she heard her father's voice behind her. The Marquis had
stepped out on to the balcony to ascertain whether La Boulaye had yet
regained consciousness.

"He seems to be even now recovering," said someone.

"Ah, y