In the course of the last vacation Granville had twice seen Angelique,
and her downcast eyes and drooping attitude had led him to suppose that
she was crushed by some unknown tyranny.

He was off by seven next morning to the coach office in the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, and was so lucky as to find a vacant seat in
the diligence then starting for Caen.

It was not without deep emotion that the young lawyer saw once more the
spires of the cathedral at Bayeux. As yet no hope of his life had been
cheated, and his heart swelled with the generous feelings that expand in
the youthful soul.

After the too lengthy feast of welcome prepared by his father, who
awaited him with some friends, the impatient youth was conducted to a
house, long familiar to him, standing in the Rue Teinture. His heart
beat high when his father--still known in the town of Bayeux as the
Comte de Granville--knocked loudly at a carriage gate off which the
green paint was dropping in scales. It was about four in the afternoon.
A young maid-servant, in a cotton cap, dropped a short curtsey to the
two gentlemen, and said that the ladies would soon be home from vespers.

The Count and his son were shown into a low room used as a drawing-room,
but more like a convent parlor. Polished panels of dark walnut made
it gloomy enough, and around it some old-fashioned chairs covered with
worsted work and stiff armchairs were symmetrically arranged. The stone
chimney-shelf had no ornament but a discolored mirror, and on each side
of it were the twisted branches of a pair of candle-brackets, such as
were made at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Against a panel opposite,
young Granville saw an enormous crucifix of ebony and ivory surrounded
by a wreath of box that had been blessed. Though there were three
windows to the room, looking out on a country-town garden, laid out
in formal square beds edged with box, the room was so dark that it was
difficult to discern, on the wall opposite the windows, three pictures
of sacred subjects painted by a skilled hand, and purchased, no doubt,
during the Revolution by old Bontems, who, as governor of the district,
had never neglected his opportunities. From the carefully polished floor
to the green checked holland curtains everything shone with conventual
cleanliness.

The young man's heart felt an involuntary chill in this silent retreat
where Angelique dwelt. The habit of frequenting the glittering Paris
drawing-rooms, and