So this was the end of it all: the sequel of so many intrigues, so many hopes, of the carefully-laid plans and the certainty of victory. Laurent, with his tempestuous, impulsive nature, had atoned with his life for his one hour of folly; the small band of Royalists was dispersed, its leaders fugitives; and a proud and self-willed woman would henceforth be destined to eat out her heart in vain remorse and regret. Callously she would have sacrificed one son, even whilst God decreed that He would take the other. Laurent de Mortain had fallen a victim to the dastardly attempt planned against his brother, just as much as to the unreasoning jealousy which had made him desert his post and forfeit his honour. Madame la Marquise was a broken old woman now; even her hatred against Fernande was swallowed up in the immensity of her grief. She allowed the young girl to attend on her, to find her mantle and hood, and then gently to lead her downstairs. She could not bring herself to speak to her, however; in her heart, beside the bitterness of self-reproach, there lurked the dull resentment against the woman who had ruled over her son's heart until the hour of his death. Half an hour later the two women, sitting side by side in the carriole, were driven rapidly to Courson. CHAPTER XXV THE WHITE PIGEON I Fernande waited in the hall below while Madame la Marquise went upstairs to see the last of her son. Half a dozen men from the La Frontenay works formed a guard of honour for the dead. It was impossible even for Fernande, who knew her aunt so well, to guess at what Denise de Mortain felt. Her heart was so little capable of grief, that it was doubtful whether she really mourned Laurent, or whether pride, in that he died a hero's death, acted as a soothing balm upon her sorrow. When half an hour later she rejoined her niece in the small boudoir downstairs, she appeared outwardly quite calm, and talked of nothing but the new plans which already were seething in her brain, and which were destined to retrieve the mistakes of the night. "De Puisaye was wise," she said, "not to jeopardize his forces. They are practically intact, ready for a coup which must in the near future be successful. We fell into many grave errors this time, and we shall now stand in the happy position of being forewarned." Fernande thought it best to say nothing. What had been the use of arguing that Marshal de Maurel was also forewarned now? "I have not given up the idea of a possible seizure of the La Frontenay works," Madame went on in her cold and placid way, just as if all her schemes of the past twelve months had not culminated in the death of the one being in the world whom she had professed to love; "but I still think that my own original idea when I first came to Courson last year, of being in open amity with my son Ronnay, was the wisest after all. I must speak with your father and with de Puisaye about that."