the Lady Louise had found one more
to her liking. Knowing what royal displeasure might mean, and being,
despite her hot heart, a cool-headed sort of person, she took
precautions to put all of her estates into gold and jewels which one
could carry readily in case of flight. Then she slipped away from the
court and rode with her lover to the south.

"That was in the year 1820. Bellaire, though penniless after the
disaster of 1815, had managed in the five years to have accumulated
much. He was a born gambler and the fates turned the dice for him so
that men said that he was in truth the Devil and the son of the Devil.
Like the Lady Louise he had his property converted into such form that
a man might carry it in his hands. It became known publicly after the
flight that the Nemours diamonds and the pearls of the old prince de
Chartres had found their way into Bellaire's hands across a table with
a green top.

"When the honeymoon was six hours old the wrath of the testy king found
them. Paul Bellaire put the Lady Louise out of a side door and upon
her horse; then he unlocked the front door and bowed to his callers.
They were five men and those of them whom he did not merely cripple he
killed. All of France rang with it."

The girl was breathing deeply as though agitated by her own tale, her
eyes having the look of one who stares at ghost figures through the dim
years. In her voice there was the ringing note of pride, pride of
blood, of consanguinity with such a man as her fancy pictured Paul
Bellaire to have been.

"He was hurt, badly hurt," she went on. "But he found another horse
and left the village, following the Lady Louise to the coast and
carrying with him both her moneys and his. A ship brought them to
America and they made a home in New Orleans. There they sought and
found exiles of their own station, making about them a circle as
brilliant as Louis's court. And here Bellaire prospered until after my
father was born. Then there came other trouble, a game in Paul
Bellaire's own home over which there were hot dispute and pistol shots.
And once more, because he had killed a man who was not without fame,
wealth and a wide reaching influence, Paul Bellaire became an exile.

"After that night the Countess Louise saw my grandfather only four
times. An exile from two countries, two prices upon his head, he
played daily with death. Driven from France he had come to America;
now driven from America he wen