aybe he does not," said she, with a half-sigh. Then she looked up
into his face again. "I am sad at the thought of going, monsieur," she
surprised him by saying.

"Sad?" he cried. Then he laughed. "But what can there be to sadden you?"

"This, monsieur: that after to-night it is odds I shall never see you
more." She said it without hesitation and without coquetry, for her
upbringing had been simple and natural in an atmosphere different far
from that in which had been reared the courtly women he had known. "You
will return to Paris and the great world, and I shall live out my life
in this, little corner of Dauphiny. You will forget me in the bustle of
your career, monsieur; but I shall always hold your memory very dear
and very gratefully. You are the only friend I have ever known since my
father died excepting Florimond, though it is so long since I have seen
him, and he never came to me in times of stress as you have done."

"Mademoiselle," he answered, touched despite himself more touched than
he could have believed possible to his callous, world-worn nature--"you
make me very proud; you make me feel a little better than I am, for if
I have earned your regard and friendship, there must be some good in old
Garnache. Believe me, mademoiselle, I too shall not forget."

And thereafter they remained a spell in silence, she sitting by the
window, gazing out into the bright October sky, he standing by her
chair, thoughtfully considering her brown head so gracefully set upon
her little shoulders. A feeling came to him that was odd and unusual; he
sought to interpret it, and he supposed it to mean that he wished that
at some time in the dim past he might have married some woman who would
have borne him for daughter such a one as this.

CHAPTER XV. THE CONFERENCE

The matter that brought Monsieur de Tressan to Condillac--and brought
him in most fearful haste--was the matter of the courier who had that
day arrived at the chateau.

News of it had reached the ears of my Lord Seneschal. His mind had been
a prey to uneasiness concerning this business of rebellion in which he
had so rashly lent a hand, and he was anxious to know whence came
this courier and what news he brought. But for all his haste he had
paused--remembering it was the Marquise he went to visit--to don the
gorgeous yellow suit with the hanging sleeves which he had had from
Paris, and the crimson sash he had bought at Taillemant's, all in the
very la