rrant even had we arrived earlier. But
for effect--to produce a striking coup de theatre--we could not have
come more opportunely.

A coach stood in the quadrangle, at the foot of the chateau steps:
down these the Vicomte was descending, with the Vicomtesse--grim and
blasphemant as ever, on one side, and his daughter, white of face and
with tightly compressed lips, on the other. Between these two women--his
wife and his child--as different in body as they were different in soul,
came Lavedan with a firm step, a good colour, and a look of well-bred,
lofty indifference to his fate.

He disposed himself to enter the carriage which was to bear him to
prison with much the same air he would have assumed had his destination
been a royal levee.

Around the coach were grouped a score of men of Saint-Eustache's
company--half soldiers, half ploughboys--ill-garbed and indifferently
accoutred in dull breastplates and steel caps, many of which were
rusted. By the carriage door stood the long, lank figure of the
Chevalier himself, dressed with his wonted care, and perfumed, curled,
and beribboned beyond belief. His weak, boyish face sought by scowls and
by the adoption of a grim smile to assume an air of martial ferocity.

Such was the grouping in the quadrangle when my men, with Gilles at
their head, thundered across the drawbridge, giving pause to those
within, and drawing upon themselves the eyes of all, as they rode, two
by two, under the old-world arch of the keep into the courtyard. And
Gilles, who knew our errand, and who was as ready-witted a rogue as
ever rode with me, took in the situation at a glance. Knowing how much
I desired to make a goodly show, he whispered an order. This resulted
in the couples dividing at the gateway, one going to the left and one
to the right, so that as they came they spread themselves in a crescent,
and drawing rein, they faced forward, confronting and half surrounding
the Chevalier's company.

As each couple appeared, the curiosity--the uneasiness, probably--of
Saint-Eustache and his men, had increased, and their expectancy was on
tiptoe to see what lord it was went abroad with such regal pomp, when I
appeared in the gateway and advanced at the trot into the middle of the
quadrangle. There I drew rein and doffed my hat to them as they stood,
open-mouthed and gaping one and all. If it was a theatrical display, a
parade worthy of a tilt-ground, it was yet a noble and imposing advent,
and the