heart stand still suddenly, and with a tremor, as of fear,
she gathered her child close to her. "What is all those ships, maman?"
asked the child. "They are ships to defend Jersey," she said, watching
the Imperturbable and its flotilla range on.

"Will they affend us, maman?"

"Perhaps-at the last," she said.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Off Grouville Bay lay the squadron of the Jersey station. The St.
George's Cross was flying at the fore of the Imperturbable, and on every
ship of the fleet the white ensign flapped in the morning wind. The
wooden-walled three-decked flag-ship, with her 32-pounders, and six
hundred men, was not less picturesque and was more important than the
Castle of Mont Orgueil near by, standing over two hundred feet above the
level of the sea: the home of Philip d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy, and the
Comtesse Chantavoine, now known to the world as the Duchesse de Bercy.

The Comtesse had arrived in the island almost simultaneously with
Philip, although he had urged her to remain at the ducal palace of
Bercy. But the duchy of Bercy was in hard case. When the imbecile Duke
Leopold John died and Philip succeeded, the neutrality of Bercy had been
proclaimed, but this neutrality had since been violated, and there was
danger at once from the incursions of the Austrians and the ravages of
the French troops. In Philip's absence the valiant governor-general
of the duchy, aided by the influence and courage of the Comtesse
Chantavoine, had thus far saved it from dismemberment, in spite of
attempted betrayals by Damour the Intendant, who still remained Philip's
enemy.

But when the Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, the uncle of the Comtesse, died,
her cousin, General Grandjon-Larisse of the Republican army--whose word
with Dalbarade had secured Philip's release years before for her own
safety, first urged and then commanded her temporary absence from
the duchy. So far he had been able to protect it from the fury of the
Republicans and the secret treachery of the Jacobins. But a time of
great peril was now at hand. Under these anxieties and the lack of other
inspiration than duty, her health had failed, and at last she obeyed her
cousin, joining Philip at the Castle of Mont Orgueil.

More than a year had passed since she had seen him, but there was no
emotion, no ardour in their present greeting. From the first there had
been nothing to link them together. She had married, hoping that she
might love thereafter; he in chol