all the
love-making you have read of in your books, and learn to make pretty
speeches."

"Father, is it not the first duty of a nobleman to keep his word?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, on the day when I forgave you the death of my mother, dying
here through her marriage with you, did you not promise me never to
thwart my wishes? 'I will obey you as the family god,' were the words
you said to me. I ask nothing of you, I simply demand my freedom in a
matter which concerns my life and myself only,--namely, my marriage."

"I understood," replied the old man, all the blood in his body rushing
into his face, "that you would not oppose the continuation of our noble
race."

"You made no condition," said Etienne. "I do not know what love has to
do with race; but this I know, I love the daughter of your old friend
Beauvouloir, and the granddaughter of your friend La Belle Romaine."

"She is dead," replied the old colossus, with an air both savage and
jeering, which told only too plainly his intention of making away with
her.

A moment of deep silence followed.

The duke saw, through the half-opened door, the three ladies and
d'Artagnon. At that crucial moment Etienne, whose sense of hearing was
acute, heard in the cardinal's library poor Gabrielle's voice, singing,
to let her lover know she was there,--

"Ermine hath not
Her pureness;
The lily not her whiteness."

The hated son, whom his father's horrible speech had flung into a gulf
of death, returned to the surface of life at the sound of that voice.
Though the emotion of terror thus rapidly cast off had already in that
instant, broken his heart, he gathered up his strength, looked his
father in the face for the first time in his life, gave scorn for scorn,
and said, in tones of hatred:--

"A nobleman ought not to lie."

Then with one bound he sprang to the door of the library and cried:--

"Gabrielle!"

Suddenly the gentle creature appeared among the shadows, like the lily
among its leaves, trembling before those mocking women thus informed
of Etienne's love. As the clouds that bear the thunder project upon
the heavens, so the old duke, reaching a degree of anger that defies
description, stood out upon the brilliant background produced by the
rich clothing of those courtly dames. Between the destruction of his son
and a mesalliance, every other father would have hesitated, but in this
uncontrollable old man ferocity was the power which had so far solve