he came to me and said:

"Madame, the sovereign Lord of Heaven has willed it thus; that the
officers of the French King should have discovered as the residence of
his Court this castle amid gloomy forests and precipices. The great
prince has come hither and has stayed here for a brief while, and we have
sought to welcome him as well as we could. He gave the Comte de
Bleink-Elmeink, lord of this place and my master, his portrait set in
diamonds; he had far better have cut his throat."

"Good heavens, woman! What is this you tell me?" I exclaimed. "Of what
crime is your master guilty? He seems to me to be somewhat moody and
unsociable; but his family is of good renown, and all sorts of good
things have been, told concerning it to the King and Queen."

"Madame," replied the old woman, drawing me aside into a window-recess,
and lowering her voice, "do you see at the far end of yonder court an old
dungeon of much narrower dimensions than the others? In that dungeon
lies the good Comtesse de Bleink-Elmeink; she has languished there for
five years."

Then this woman informed me that her master, formerly page of honour to
the Empress Eleanor, had wedded, on account of her great wealth, a young
Hungarian noblewoman, by whom he had two children, both of whom were
living. Such was his dislike of their mother, on account of a slight
deformity, that for four or five years he shamefully maltreated her, and
at last shut her up in this dungeon-keep, allowing her daily the most
meagre diet possible.

"When, some few days since, the royal stewards appeared in front of the
moat, and claimed admittance, the Count was much alarmed," added the
peasant woman. "He thought that all was discovered, and that he was
going to suffer for it. It was not until the King and Queen came that he
was reassured, and he has not been able to hide his embarrassment from
any of us."

"Where are the two children of his marriage?" I asked the old woman,
before deciding to act.

"The young Baron," she answered, "is at Vienna or Ohnutz, at an academy
there. His sister, a graceful, pretty girl, has been in a convent from
her childhood; the nuns have promised to keep her there, and as soon as
she is fourteen, she will take the veil."

My first impulse was to acquaint the Queen with these astounding
revelations, but it soon struck me that, to tackle a man of such
importance as the Count, we could not do without the King. I at once
sent my secreta