clared frantically. "Do you suppose
I have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched business
out at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, for
a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He
is the devil! _He_ is responsible for this--naturally." And he fell
again to pacing the room.

I looked blankly at the Vicomte.

"Son? What young son?" I asked.

The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise.

"Ah! _Sapristi!_ You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know that
Babette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away with
her and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francs
belonged to Le Bour? _Sapristi!_ You did not know _that_?"

[Illustration: sign: CHASSE GARDEE]

* * * * *

[Illustration: the yellow car]

CHAPTER TEN

THE BELLS OF PONT DU SABLE

The big yellow car came ripping down the road--a clean hard ribbon of a
road skirting the tawny marsh that lay this sparkling August morning
under a glaze of turquoise blue water at high tide.

With a devilish wail from its siren, the yellow car whizzed past my
house abandoned by the marsh. I was just in time, as I raised my head
above the rambling wall of my courtyard, to catch sight of my good
friend the cure on the back seat, holding on tight to his saucer-like
hat. In the same rapid glance I saw the fluttering ends of a
bottle-green veil, in front of the cure's nose and knew Germaine was
driving.

"Lucky cure!" I said to myself, as I returned to my half-finished
sketch, "carried off again to luncheon by one of the dearest of little
women."

No wonder during his lonely winters, when every villa or chateau of
every friend of his for miles around is closed, and my vagabond village
of Pont du Sable rarely sees a Parisian, the cure longs for midsummer.
It is his gayest season, since hardly a day passes but some friend
kidnaps him from his presbytery that lies snug and silent back of the
crumbling wall which hides both his house and his wild garden from the
gaze of the passer-by.

He is the kind of cure whom it is a joy to invite--this straight, strong
cure, who is French to the backbone; with his devil-may-care geniality,
his irresistible smile of a comedian, his quick wit of an Irishman, and
his heart of gold.

To-day Germaine had captured him and was speeding him away to a jolly
luncheon of friends at