d men say, almost in a
dungeon, in her father's castle, for now above a twelvemonth. What has
fallen out no one as yet knows certainly; but it is whispered now that
she has yielded, and the court scandal goes that she has either wedded
him already, or is to do so now within a few days. It is said that
they are looked for ere the month is out in Paris."

"Then I will to horse, uncle," replied Raoul, "before this night is
two hours older for St. Renan."

"Great Heaven! To what end, Raoul. For the sake of all that is good!
By your father's memory! I implore you, do nothing rashly."

"To know of my own knowledge if she be true or false, uncle."

"And what matters it, Raoul? My boy, my unhappy boy! False or true she
is lost to you alike, and forever. You have that against which to
contend, which no human energy can conquer."

"I know not the thing which human energy cannot conquer, uncle. It is
years now ago that my good father taught me this--that there is no
such word as _cannot_! I have proved it before now, uncle abbe; I may,
should I find it worth the while, prove it again, and that shortly. If
so, let the guilty and the traitors look to themselves--they were
best, for they shall need it!"

Such was the state of St. Renan's affections and his hopes when he
left the gay capital of France, within a few hours after his arrival,
and hurried down at the utmost speed of man and horse into Bretagne,
whither he made his way so rapidly that the first intimation his
people received of his return from the east was his presence at the
gates of the castle.

Great, as may be imagined, was the real joy of the old true-hearted
servitors of the house, at finding their lord thus unexpectedly
restored to them, at a time when they had in fact almost abandoned
every hope of seeing him again. The same infernal policy which had
thrust him so often, as it were, into the very jaws of death, which
had intercepted all the letters sent to him from home, and taken, in
one word, every step that ingenuity could suggest to isolate him
altogether in that distant world, had taken measures as deep and
iniquitous at home to cause him to be regarded as one dead, and to
obliterate all memory of his existence.

Three different times reports so circumstantial, and accompanied by
such minute details of time and place as to render it almost
impossible for men to doubt their authenticity, had been circulated
with regard to the death of the young soldie