please if she fell not a victim
to his wooing.

We proceeded along the road bordering the Loire, a road of rare beauty
at any other season of the year, but now bare of foliage, grey, bleak,
and sullen as the clouds overhead, and as cold to the eye as was the
sharp wind to the flesh. As we rode I fell to thinking of what my
reception at the Chateau de Canaples was likely to be, and almost to
regret that I had permitted Andrea to persuade me to accompany him. Long
ago I had known the Chevalier de Canaples, and for all the disparity
in our ages--for he counted twice my years--we had been friends and
comrades. That, however, was ten years ago, in the old days when I owned
something more than the name of Luynes. To-day I appeared before him as
a ruined adventurer, a soldier of fortune, a ruffler, a duellist who had
almost slain his son in a brawl, whose details might be known to him,
but not its origin. Seeing me in the company of Andrea de Mancini he
might--who could say?--even deem me one of those parasites who cling to
young men of fortune so that they may live at their expense. That the
daughter would have formed such a conceit of me I was assured; it but
remained to see with what countenance the father would greet me.

From such speculations I was at length aroused by our arrival at the
gates of the Canaples park. Seeing them wide open, we rode between
the two massive columns of granite (each surmounted by a couchant lion
holding the escutcheon of the Canaples) and proceeded at an ambling pace
up the avenue. Through the naked trees the chateau became discernible--a
brave old castle that once had been the stronghold of a feudal race
long dead. Grey it was, and attuned, that day, to the rest of the grey
landscape. But at its base the ivy grew thick and green, and here and
there long streaks of it crept up almost to the battlements, whilst
in one place it had gone higher yet and clothed one of the quaint old
turrets. A moat there had once been, but this was now filled up and
arranged into little mounds that became flower-beds in summer.

Resigning our horses to the keeping of our servants, we followed the
grave maitre d'hotel who had received us. He led us across the spacious
hall, which had all the appearance of an armoury, and up the regal
staircase of polished oak on to a landing wide and lofty. Here, turning
to the left, he opened a door and desired us to give ourselves the
trouble of awaiting the Chevalier. We enter