ll make himself the protector. He will love Art
instead of loving a woman, and Art will not betray him."

The pleasures of this tender motherhood were incessantly held in check
by sad reflections, born of the strange position in which Etienne was
placed. The brothers had passed the adolescent age without knowing each
other, without so much as even suspecting their rival existence. The
duchess had long hoped for an opportunity, during the absence of her
husband, to bind the two brothers to each other in some solemn scene by
which she might enfold them both in her love. This hope, long cherished,
had now faded. Far from wishing to bring about an intercourse between
the brothers, she feared an encounter between them, even more than
between the father and son. Maximilien, who believed in evil only,
might have feared that Etienne would some day claim his rights, and, so
fearing, might have flung him into the sea with a stone around his neck.
No son had ever less respect for a mother than he. As soon as he could
reason he had seen the low esteem in which the duke held his wife. If
the old man still retained some forms of decency in his manners to the
duchess, Maximilien, unrestrained by his father, caused his mother many
a grief.

Consequently, Bertrand was incessantly on the watch to prevent
Maximilien from seeing Etienne, whose existence was carefully concealed.
All the attendants of the castle cordially hated the Marquis de
Saint-Sever (the name and title borne by the younger brother), and those
who knew of the existence of the elder looked upon him as an avenger
whom God was holding in reserve.

Etienne's future was therefore doubtful; he might even be persecuted
by his own brother! The poor duchess had no relations to whom she could
confide the life and interests of her cherished child. Would he not
blame her when in his violet robes he longed to be a father as she had
been a mother? These thoughts, and her melancholy life so full of secret
sorrows were like a mortal illness kept at bay for a time by remedies.
Her heart needed the wisest management, and those about her were cruelly
inexpert in gentleness. What mother's heart would not have been torn
at the sight of her eldest son, a man of mind and soul in whom a noble
genius made itself felt, deprived of his rights, while the younger, hard
and brutal, without talent, even military talent, was chosen to wear
the ducal coronet and perpetuate the family? The house of Her