Condillac will have
passed out of our power; it will be lost to you irretrievably. Will you
lose La Vauvraye as well?"

He let his hand fall to his side, and turned, fully to face her.

"What can I do? What can we do?" he asked, a shade of petulance in his
question.

She stepped close up to him and rested her hand lightly upon his
shoulder.

"You have had three months in which to woo that girl, and you have
tarried sadly over it, Marius. You have now at most three days in which
to accomplish it. What will you do?"

"I have been maladroit perhaps," he said, with bitterness. "I have
been over-patient with her. I have counted too much upon the chance of
Florimond's being dead, as seemed from the utter lack of news of him.
Yet what could I do? Carry her off by force and compel at the dagger's
point some priest to marry us?"

She moved her hand from his shoulder and smiled, as if she derided him
and his heat.

"You want for invention, Marius," said she. "And yet I beg that you will
exert your mind, or Sunday next shall find us well-nigh homeless. I'll
take no charity from the Marquis de Condillac, nor, I think, will you."

"If all fails," said he, "we have still your house in Touraine."

"My house?" she echoed, her voice shrill with scorn. "My hovel, you
would say. Could you abide there--in such a sty?"

"Vertudieu! If all else failed, we might be glad of it."

"Glad of it? Not I, for one. Yet all else will fail unless you bestir
yourself in the next three days. Condillac is as good as lost to
you already, since Florimond is upon the threshold. La Vauvraye most
certainly will be lost to you as well unless you make haste to snatch it
in the little moment that is left you."

"Can I achieve the impossible, madame?" he cried, and his impatience
waxed beneath this unreasonable insistence of his mother's.

"Who asks it of you?"

"Do not you, madame?"

"I? Pish! All that I urge is that you take Valerie across the border
into Savoy where you can find a priest to marry you, and get it done
this side of Saturday."

"And is not that the impossible? She will not go with me, as you well
know, madame."

There was a moment's silence. The Dowager shot him a glance; then her
eyes fell. Her bosom stirred as if some strange excitement moved
her. Fear and shame were her emotions; for a way she knew by which
mademoiselle might be induced to go with him--not only willingly, but
eagerly, she thought--to the altar. But she w