"Father!" she sobbed.

There are some things that a man of breeding may not witness--some
things to look upon which is near akin to eavesdropping or reading the
letters of another. Such a scene did I now account the present one, and,
turning, I moved away. But Saint-Eustache cut it short, for scarce had
I taken three paces when his voice rang out the command to move. The
driver hesitated, for the girl was still hanging at the window. But a
second command, accompanied by a vigorous oath, overcame his hesitation.
He gathered up his reins, cracked his whip, and the lumbering wheels
began to move.

"Have a care, child!" I heard the Vicomte cry, "have a care! Adieu, mon
enfant!"

She sprang back, sobbing, and assuredly she would have fallen, thrown
out of balance by the movement of the coach, but that I put forth my
hands and caught her.

I do not think she knew whose were the arms that held her for that brief
space, so desolated was she by the grief so long repressed. At last she
realized that it was this worthless Bardelys against whom she rested;
this man who had wagered that he would win and wed her; this impostor
who had come to her under an assumed name; this knave who had lied to
her as no gentleman could have lied, swearing to love her, whilst, in
reality, he did no more than seek to win a wager. When all this she
realized, she shuddered a second, then moved abruptly from my grasp,
and, without so much as a glance at me, she left me, and, ascending the
steps of the chateau, she passed from my sight.

I gave the order to dismount as the last of Saint-Eustache's followers
vanished under the portcullis.

CHAPTER XIX. THE FLINT AND THE STEEL

"Mademoiselle will see you, monsieur," said Anatole at last.

Twice already had he carried unavailingly my request that Roxalanne
should accord me an interview ere I departed. On this the third occasion
I had bidden him say that I would not stir from Lavedan until she had
done me the honour of hearing me. Seemingly that threat had prevailed
where entreaties had been scorned.

I followed Anatole from the half-light of the hall in which I had been
pacing into the salon overlooking the terraces and the river, where
Roxalanne awaited me. She was standing at the farther end of the room by
one of the long windows, which was open, for, although we were already
in the first week of October, the air of Languedoc was as warm and balmy
as that of Paris or Picardy is in su