And Pierre, for all his foolishness, was right, for the passion of a bad and evil man had become purified in the presence of this child of the forest. He loved her, not as he had loved others, but with a reverence, such as one has for saints, combined with the passion he felt for the woman, and, as he sat there, day by day, watching her as she span, or listening entranced when she sang to him a sweet, simple ballad of Brittany, filled with the romance and sadness of her land, in a voice such as the birds might have envied, he swore to himself that this peasant girl should be his wife, and that for her sake he would do all things. But the snake of old ever lurks in the fairest garden of dreams, and so the very purpose of his presence in these forests became one that he swore to fulfil, evil and cruel as it was, for the sake of this beautiful child, whose guileless glances had won his sin-hardened heart. So the devil tempts us. For the sake, we say, of one we love, however pure and good, we will do evil so that we may lavish its fruits on the object of our devotion, who, forsooth! would shrink back appalled if it knew from whence those fruits came. So in the autumn woods three souls dreamed out their dreams. Pierre the fool strutting, in his mind’s eye, in a suit of velvet and chain of gold, no longer the jester or object of jest, but "Monsieur Laurent," brother, honoured and esteemed, of Madame la Châtelaine. Guillaume de Coray clasping in his arms the lovely girl whose image had blotted out so many and so varied dreams of ambitions, and leading her with proud and triumphant steps to his Château of Mereac, won at last by means to which he involuntarily closed his eyes. And Gabrielle Laurent, seeing only the face of the man to whom she had given her heart, and whom she must love for all time, indifferent to whether he were great lord or simple peasant, with all the pure tenderness of her young heart. Whilst at night, as she knelt in prayer within her lonely hut, she would thank the good God and all her guardian saints, with child-like simplicity and gratitude, for sending into her life one so noble and so good as Guillaume de Coray, repeating the name softly and reverently to herself, as though it possessed some charm to drive away all dreams of ill, as she lay in her wooden bed, watching the flickering moonlight as it fell across the threshold—the white, beautiful moonlight, which was no purer than her thoughts as she fell to sleep murmuring her lover’s name. Alas! the poor little Gabrielle! *CHAPTER XIV* It was some three hours after Pierre the fool had delivered Diane de Coray’s message that the brother and sister sat together in her chamber at the Château de Mereac. "So thou hast succeeded?" inquired Guillaume, scanning with curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, his sister’s beautiful face. "Beyond our expectations." There was a mocking intonation in her words which did not escape him.