Angelot was out of sight, though not out of hearing. Forty feet of thick ivy and knotted stems, shelter of generations of owls, stretched between the chapel window and the moat's green floor; ivy two centuries old, the happy hunting-ground of many a lad of Lancilly and La Marinière. But that night, perhaps, the hospitable old tree reached the most romantic point of its history. Hélène stretched down eager hands among the thick leaves. "Angelot! Angelot!" She heard nothing but the rustling down below, saw nothing but the thick leaves under the stars, though somebody had opened the chapel door, and though her treacherous candle, throwing a square of light upon the dark trees opposite, showed not only her own imploring shadow, but that of a tall figure stepping up behind her. In another moment her arm was seized in a grasp by no means gentle, and she turned round with a scream to face Madame de Sainfoy. Her cry might have stopped Angelot in his swift descent and brought him to the window again, but as he neared the ground he saw that some one was waiting for him, some one standing on the flat grass, under the light of such stars as shone down into the moat, gazing with fixed gravity at the window from which Hélène was leaning. Angelot's light spring to the ground brought him within a couple of yards of the motionless figure, and his white face flushed red when he saw that it was Hélène's father. The few moments during which he faced Comte Hervé silently were the worst his happy young life had ever known. The elder man did not speak till Hélène, with that last little cry, had disappeared from the window. Then he looked at Angelot. "I am sorry, Ange," he said, "for I owe a good deal to your father. But I will ask you to wait here while I fetch my pistols. It is best to settle such a matter on the spot--though you hardly deserve to be so well treated." "Monsieur--" Angelot almost choked. "Ah! Do not trouble yourself to hunt for excuses--there are none," said the Comte. He was moving off, but Angelot threw himself in his way. "Bring one pistol," he said. "One will be enough, for I cannot fight you--you know it. But you may kill me if it pleases you." Hervé shrugged his shoulders. "How long has this been going on? How many times have you met my daughter clandestinely? Does it seem to you the behaviour of a gentleman? On my soul, you deserve to be shot down like a dog, as you say!" "No, monsieur," Angelot said quickly, "I give you leave to do it, for I see now that life must be misery. But I have done no such harm as to deserve to be shot! No! I love and adore my cousin, and you must have known it--every one knows it, I should think. Can I sit quietly at home while her family gives her the choice between General Ratoneau and a convent? No, I confess it is more than I can bear."